The Scripps National Spelling Bee dates to 1925
Its winning words send students deep into Latin, Greek, and the long history of English spelling.
Machine translation keeps getting more natural
AI translation now captures tone and idiom far better than the word-for-word tools of a decade ago.
Word ladders were invented by Lewis Carroll
The author of 'Alice in Wonderland' created the game of changing one word into another a single letter at a time, which he called 'Doublets,' in 1877.
Beware 'false friends' between languages
Spanish 'embarazada' looks like 'embarrassed' but actually means 'pregnant' -- a classic false friend for learners.
Rebus puzzles tell stories with pictures
A rebus uses images and letters to stand in for words and phrases -- an ancient idea that is still good fun today.
'Go.' can be a complete sentence
With an implied 'you,' a single word forms a full command -- English at its most efficient.
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