If we say, “Let’s talk about English accents,” you might imagine a refined gentleman taking his tea and crumpets. But in this case, we’re talking about accent marks. While many other languages rely heavily on accent marks to guide pronunciation, English speakers rarely deal with tildes and umlauts (and in the rare cases you do come across an accent mark, odds are it’s a loanword from another language).

In a technical sense, accent marks are called “diacritical marks” — symbols added to letters in order to indicate a change in tone or stress. They include acute accents (é), diaeresis (ä), and cedillas (ç), just to name a few. Diacritical marks are quite common in other languages, as evidenced by many of the loanwords that are now a common part of the English lexicon: café, crème, doppelgänger, château, açai, piñata, the list goes on.

So why doesn’t English have diacritical marks of its own? The simplest answer is likely due to the invention of the printing press. During the 15th century, many early printers eliminated accent marks from words in an effort to make the printing process easier. While most English words have roots in languages with diacritical marks, the accentless versions have become the standard English versions. For example, the French versions of hôtel, début, and façade turned into “hotel,” “debut,” and “facade” in English — same spelling, same definition, no accent marks. 

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A baby’s first word is a major milestone in their development, no matter how short or long the word may be. That being said, if your baby suddenly says, “Worcestershire,” or “açai,” you have a genius on your hands. Most kids tend to say their first coherent words around the age of 1, and then begin to form complete sentences within the following year. Often speech begins with the simple words “mama” and “dada” — or variations thereof — and there’s a few reasons for that.

First off, the repetitive nature of the syllables makes them catchy and easy to repeat, and babies hear these terms more frequently than “hocus-pocus” or “flip-flop,” for example. In linguistic terms, the word “mama” starts with a labial consonant (“m”), which utilizes both lips in a similar fashion to how a baby would breastfeed or bottle-feed. This familiar mouth construction makes it much easier for babies to say the word “mama,” as they already know how to make that shape with their lips. 

The word “dada,” on the other hand, begins with a dental consonant, a term describing how the tongue pushes against the upper teeth to make these sounds. Because of this, it might come after “mama.” However, saying “dada” doesn’t require learning how to push air out through the nose, which is a skill that takes time for babies to develop. Some babies may say “mama” and “dada” because they associate the sounds with food or comfort, not necessarily because they’re a direct reference to mom and dad.

If a baby hasn’t started babbling with “mama” or “dada,” another short and/or repetitive term such as “uh oh” or the ubiquitous “no” might be coming soon. Studies show that learning and using repetitive versions of words (“night-night” and “choo-choo,” for example) at a young age may actually help children in vocabulary learning. This makes words like “mama” and “dada” excellent options if you’re trying to encourage your child to say their first word.

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Before we talk about the word “schwa,” and what this symbol does, let’s just acknowledge how fun it is to say over and over. Schhhwaaaa … schhhwaaaaa … OK, that’s enough of that.

“Schwa” is the name for the upside-down “e” symbol (ǝ) often seen in the dictionary in the pronunciation guide as part of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). It’s derived from the Hebrew word shva — a vowel that serves a similar purpose and appears in writing as two vertical dots beneath a letter. When it comes to pronunciation, the “ǝ” designates an unstressed syllable pronounced more like “uh.”

What makes a schwa special is that it often shows up even when there doesn’t appear to be a letter. Take “rhythm,” for example — while there’s no vowel seen between “th” and “m,” the IPA pronunciation shows “ əm” as the second syllable. The word is pronounced “RIH-thuhm” with the schwa symbol giving an unstressed vowel “uh” sound in the second syllable. 

In addition to Hebrew and English, you’ll find schwas in at least 10 other languages, including Albanian, where it’s written as a diaeresis (two dots) over an “e.” In Dutch, it’s a digraph (two letters) written as “ij.” In Malay, schwas are shown using a symbol that looks like an upside-down “v.” No matter how the schwa is written, it sounds the same (the unstressed “uh” sound) in every language that uses it.

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For most people, the terms “bugs” and “insects” are used interchangeably to refer to any itsy-bitsy critter flying through the air or crawling on the countertop. But etymologically, there are a few small, yet notable distinctions that differentiate the two words. So when is it appropriate to call something a bug vs. an insect? To understand this debate, let’s travel back to a middle school science class lesson.

Scientists classify living organisms using a seven-tiered taxonomy scale: kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species. (A common mnemonic to help remember this order is: King Phillip Came Over For Good Soup.) These distinct groups range from the most general at the top (kingdom) down to the most specific (species). Within the kingdom Animalia, you’ll find a vast array of living creatures that includes humans, birds, baboons, and beetles, just to name a few. But once you drop down a level to phylum, you begin to see significant differences both biologically and etymologically.

The phylum Arthropoda includes pretty much all the critters that we’d refer to as “bugs” — beetles, spiders, moths, centipedes, ticks, ladybugs, you name it. However, it also includes crabs, lobsters, shrimp, and any other creatures with an exoskeleton, a segmented body, and jointed appendages. The specific term “bug” originated in Middle English as the word “bugge,” referring to a “frightening scarecrow.” Over time, its use was expanded to include anything that induced fright, such as creepy-crawlies. 

The term “insect,” meanwhile, is derived from the class Insecta, which is a more specific grouping further down the taxonomic scale. By their literal definition, all insects have an exoskeleton, head, thorax, abdomen, three pairs of jointed legs, and a pair of antennae. This means that the term can be used to describe ants, beetles, butterflies, cockroaches, grasshoppers, fleas, termites, and many more creatures. At the same time, it would be inaccurate to refer to centipedes or spiders as “insects” since they lack all those features. (Centipedes are in the class Chilopoda, and spiders are in the class Arachnida.) When it comes to nomenclature, using the term “bug” for a crawly critter is almost always correct, as it’s a far more general term than “insect.”

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As we flip the calendar from summer to fall, big changes start happening. One month you’re dressing up in a spooky costume, the next you’re carving up a turkey, and the next you’re singing carols in the snow. (And if you pay attention to retail stores’ decorations, you might never know what month you’re in.) But while September, October, November, and December are celebrated quite differently, they were all named in a similar manner by the ancient Romans.

The original Roman calendar had 10 months, beginning with March. The first four months of the year — March, April, May, and June — were named after gods and Latin verbs. The remaining months were named based on their order in the year. Quintilis and Sextilis — the original names of July and August — translate to “fifth month” and “sixth month.” Similarly, the names for September, October, November, and December corresponded to the (now-inaccurate) numbers of the months: septem (seven), octo (eight), novem (nine), and decem (10). 

When January and February were officially added to create the Julian calendar around 150 BCE, every month on the Roman calendar shifted back two spots. Even though September is now the ninth month of the year, it remains the “seventh month” in a lexicographical sense. This quirk also applies to October, November, and December.

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