'False friends' are words in one language that look like words in another language, but which have very different meanings. There are a number of false friends in German, where the words look ...

Let's talk about the plurals of compound nouns. I submit to you: passers-by, hangers-on, attorneys general, brothers-in-law, and culs-de-sac. What about "month end" how would that be pluralized?

Meghan Walbert is Lifehacker's Managing Editor. She has a degree in journalism and has worked at Lifehacker as a writer and editor since 2018, covering parenting, foster care, online child safety, and ...

Mark Twain said they were not words, but "alphabetic processions … marching majestically across the page": the compound words the German language uses to capture precise or complex meanings, which are ...

Compound words are made up of two parts of speech. For example, the compound noun handkerchief is made up of two nouns: hand + kerchief. Semantically, compound words are very interesting, since their ...

In an essay describing the loathing that Ted Cruz’s face seems to inspire, the neurologist Richard Cytowic resorts to the German colloquial expression Backpfeifengesicht. It’s a combination of two ...

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