How is William the Conqueror also behind this eccentricity in the English language? — I lived in Taiwan for nearly a year. I knew no Chinese when I went and learned disappointingly little while I was there, having associated mainly with other expats from America and Canada. My lack of progress was sad and I was embarrassed by it — I used to joke…

The initial-stress derivation rule that you have been using without knowing it — “When I start to record, it’s going to go on the record.” When you read that sentence, did your brain magically pronounce “record” in two different ways? This phenomenon is known as initial-stress derivation. It’s a rule that few people know, but everyone unconsciously uses. However, most descriptions of the…

There are no reasonable discussions about abortion anymore. Both sides are providing the obvious answer to completely different questions. The pro-choice side asks, “Should women get to choose what to do with their bodies?” The obvious answer is “yes.” The pro-life side asks, “Is murder wrong?” …

They’re the best way to incentivize vaccinations and keep people safe — Welp, it happened again. In the grocery store, there was a man with his two middle school sons, strutting around without a mask on. The kids weren’t wearing one, either. …

It will eliminate the claim that an armed citizenry will stop repressive regimes — In February, there was a coup in Myanmar, one of the countries in southeast Asia. The military, known as the Tatmadaw and which had relinquished some of its absolute control in order to make the country seem more democratic, was soundly defeated in the 2020 election. …

It won’t be divisive because Republicans are already boycotting America’s pastime — You may have heard: Hordes of Republican voters — two out of every three — still actually believe that Donald Trump was robbed of the election because of voter fraud. …

If they don’t, it will be because they committed rampant run fraud — On April 1, Major League Baseball’s opening day, the World Series favorite Los Angeles Dodgers lost 8–5 to the team that could quite well end with the worst record in baseball, the Colorado Rockies. Clayton Kershaw struggled into the sixth inning. The Dodgers got 15 hits and 8 walks, but…

You have to go all the way back to 1066 to see why the law so often uses two words that mean the same thing — The law is infamous for being exceptionally dry reading. Many non-lawyers find that famous judges known for their writing style and charm, like Oliver Wendell Holmes or Antonin Scalia, are merely readable. Others, like Felix Frankfurter, are inscrutable. There are two common complaints about how the law is written. One…

Brits watching the U.S. program were stunned by drug advertisements, then the comparisons began — I hate celebrity gossip. My apathy towards the personal lives of celebrities is borderline aggressive. But I’m a legal writer and the strains of racial resentment run deep in the marriage of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry, so I’ve followed the buildup to, and now the fallout from, their interview…