Bright and breezy? You’ve got serotonin to thank. Gloomy and grumpy? A big ol’ hug and a burst of oxytocin will perk you up. As it turns out, there’s a chemical side to happiness and positive mental health. Lifestyle factors and genetics certainly play a role in this—the latter accounting for 50 percent of your high spirits, research says. Still, how happy you are is …
After a long winter day, there’s nothing better than kicking back on the sofa with a warm drink while the snow falls (and then falls some more, and some more). Looking for something new to add to your hot drink repertoire? Here are some warm and tasty winter drinks from around the world. Let’s start with the one in the headline, straight from Sweden. Glögg …
By Lindsay Barrett If you have an early reader and writer in your life, you’ve likely heard of “sight words.” What are they, why do kids need to learn them, and how can you help without inciting groans of boredom? Here are the basics you need to know, and a handy list of fun practice activities that will have kids too busy moving and creating …
by Ashley Austrew Most of us are familiar with the concept of being burned out. It’s that feeling you get when you’re stressed, overwhelmed, and simply don’t have any more energy to devote to a given task, activity … or career. Traditionally, the word burnout has been used more as a self-diagnosis or casual expression rather than treated as a medical syndrome or mental health …
What makes certain accents sound sexy and others harsh? “The RINE in SPINE fawls MINELY on tha PLINE!” In the song “The Rain in Spain” from the musical My Fair Lady, phonetics professor Henry Higgins (“’enry ’iggins”) pleads with Eliza Doolittle to say “Ay not I, O not Ow.” By the end of the song, Eliza’s “AY-ing” and “O-ing” and pronouncing all her H’s. The …
If you live in the United States, there’s a good chance that you’re familiar with Cinco de Mayo. You may even know that it means the “fifth of May,” and that it’s a holiday celebrating an important event in Mexican history. There’s also a good chance that you’re familiar with how Mexico is often tokenized on this day with, well, lots of beer and sombrero …
One of the basics of tennis is you never want to hit your ball into the net. Most people won’t confuse this mesh fabric divider that runs across the court with the word gross (even if botching an easy volley straight into the net might feel gross). But when talking about money, the line that divides net and gross profits isn’t as clear. What is the …
World Chocolate Day is something that pretty much everyone with a sweet tooth can get behind. Chocolate is one of the most beloved treats, after all, whether it’s chocolate truffles, chocolate ice cream, chocolate-covered strawberries, or anything else chocolate. But how much do you actually know about this uber-popular sweet? Turns out there’s a lot more to the word chocolate itself (not to mention all …
Trying to classify what’s a fruit and what’s a vegetable isn’t always cut and dry. In fact, the debate about it can get pretty juicy—seedy, even. This all stems from the fact that some things we eat are technically fruits but are almost always called vegetables (and treated like vegetables, too). Some people make a distinction based on the level of sweetness, but the difference—from …
The terms empathy and sympathy are often confused, and with good reason. Both of the words deal with the relationship a person has to the feelings and experiences of another person. One involves feeling a certain way about a person, and the other involves feeling the same way that another person does. In this article, we’ll explain the subtle differences between sympathy and empathy, discuss …
It’s not enough that martial and marshal are pronounced the same, is it? No, the English language has to further complicate things, because while these homophones, martial and marshal, have different meanings, they both involve some overlapping concepts of law and war. And adding to the understandable confusion of these words is marshall, with two Ls. Let’s marshal, shall we say, the facts, and bring …
