Minutemen fought for America but probably sounded British. | Wally McNamee/GettyImages Around the turn of the 18th to 19th century, not long after the Revolution, non-rhotic speech took off in ...

When I imagine Scooby-Doo, I can almost hear it. I hear the horn-filled chase theme, the pitter-patter of feet scrambling to get away, and, more than anything, I hear the semi-intelligible dialogue of ...

If there’s one thing that kept me up at night as a child, it was wondering what’s wrong with Scooby-Doo. I mean, why is he always so hungry? Does he have a tapeworm? And why does he walk away from a ...

My recent comments on rhoticity – the rolling of Rs after vowels, as practised in Ireland and most of the US but not in posher parts of England – brought a plea from reader Pat McLaughlin about ...

I’m a freak for accents. I love hearing the differences in how native English-speakers wrap their tongues around the endlessly malleable syllables of our common language, and I collect imitations of ...