10 Delightful Icelandic Words and Phrases1. "I COME COMPLETELY FROM THE MOUNTAINS." Ég kem alveg af fjöllum. This phrase throws some shade at mountain dwellers, and means, “I have no idea what you’r...
The Origin of the English Alphabet (and all its 26 letters)The English alphabet has a fascinating history, and the development of each letter of the alphabet has its own story. Although English is widely spoken, for ...
Where art thou, Mother Christmas? by Roald DahlIt’s a great shame that Roald Dahl never actually wrote any full-length Christmas stories. The subject is the perfect territory for him. Christmas delivers a...
Jane Austin and her use of pins to edit her workThe common consensus is that writers hate editing, but that’s not always the case. Truman Capote once said, “I’m all for the scissors. I believe more in the ...
In 1988, Kurt Vonnegut Writes a Letter to People Living in 2088, Giving 7 Pieces of AdviceThe mind of Kurt Vonnegut, like the protagonist of his best-known novel Slaughterhouse-Five, must have got "unstuck in time" somewhere along the line. How e...
Farewell, My Dear Brother On October 15th of 1944, with support from Nazi Germany, the far-right Arrow Cross Party took control of Hungary and immediately began to kill large numbers ...
Jólabókaflóðið, The Christmas Book FloodDecember abounds with holidays and reasons to celebrate. There's St. Nicholas Day, the Fiesta of Our Lady of Guadalupe, St. Lucia Day, Hanukkah, Christmas,...
What Makes Edgar Allan Poe So Great? This Animated Video ExplainsHis gloomy, haunted visage adorns the covers of collected works, publications of whose like he would never see in his lifetime. Edgar Allan Poe died in penur...
Behind the Scenes: Alice in Wonderland (1951)Walt Disney was a big fan of live-action reference and nearly the entire movie would be filmed before being used to guide the artists through animating the m...
When Bookshop Employees Get Bored.If you've worked in retail you'll know how boredom can often kick in. These industrious bookshop employees have found a novel way to combat this boredom.
Bertrand Russell’s Delicious Response To British Fascist Oswald MosleyFree speech has no limits. If it does, it’s no longer free. But the will to debate the status quo, ridicule the conflicting and disinfect the toxic with ligh...
Why English Is So Hard To LearnLanguage families There are around 6,000 spoken languages in the world today, and some are more distantly related to each other than others. In the discipl...
Why Is English So Hard to Learn?: The Ingenious Poem, 'The Chaos' by Gerard Nolst TrenitéIn 1920, Dutch writer and traveler Gerard Nolst Trenité, also known as Charivarius, published a textbook called Drop Your Foreign Accent: engelsche uitspraak...
Roald Dahl, Who Lost His Daughter to Measles, Writes a Heartbreaking Letter about VaccinationsGenerations of us know Roald Dahl as, first and foremost, the author of popular children's novels like The BFG, The Witches, Charlie and the Chocolate Factor...