The Scripps National Spelling Bee dates to 1925
Its winning words send students deep into Latin, Greek, and the long history of English spelling.
Today's briefing: a few timeless things worth knowing about words, language, AI, and puzzles. (Archive edition.)
Its winning words send students deep into Latin, Greek, and the long history of English spelling.
It is the craft of writing clear, effective instructions for an AI model -- and it became common enough that major dictionaries now list it as a word.
Rearranging the letters of a word or name into a new one was a favorite pastime long before mobile word games.
From 'ketchup' to 'safari' to 'pajamas,' English has borrowed words from hundreds of languages around the globe.
Built on a 1979 US puzzle called Number Place, sudoku was popularized in Japan in the 1980s before sweeping the globe.
'Cleave' can mean to split apart or to cling together; such words are called contronyms, or 'Janus words.'