Rosetta Stone is the leading language-learning software in the world. To see how good the linguists behind it really are, I emailed them in a foreign language that was even foreign to me. That’s because I made it up… <Subject Line>: Learninguez de la Sprechen Ola Ms. Rosetta Stone: Buena sa dez, allo gusta, allo [...]

The Audio Publishers Association tagline is “The Voice of the Audiobook Industry.” They seemed like a logical choice to voice my concern about audio books… Dear Advocators of the Common, Collective Business Interests of Audio Publishers: Here’s my problem: Reading regular books makes me fall asleep. As a result, I’ve had to cut down on [...]

The dictionary may be the final word on words, but I let Merriam-Webster know how I felt about certain groups of them… Dear Word Keepers: Can you please explain who came up with the idea of heteronyms, homographs, homophones and homonyms? Heteronyms are one of two or more homographs that differ in pronunciation and meaning. [...]

Only Mother Nature can remotely control the weather. The best Human Nature can do is try to predict it. I wrote the American Meteorological Society to see if they could clear up some issues I was a little cloudy on… Dear American Meteorologists who’ve Formed a Society: Since the American Meteorological Society “promotes the development [...]

Sometimes a word comes to mind, but it’s just not the right word. I didn’t care for the options my thesaurus offered for one word in particular. So I wrote Pearson Education — “The global leader in educational publishing” — in search of a more sophisticated thesaurus and a better word for the word I [...]

They say it’s important to watch your words. I wrote Merriam-Webster when I wondered whether a word I was watching might be one they weren’t watching as closely… Dear Merriam-Webster Word Wizards: I’d like to have a word with you if I may. The word is “differentiator.” I looked it up in the Merriam-Webster Online [...]

To succeed in business it helps to be smart. It also doesn’t hurt to have a degree from an Ivy League school. That’s why I made some recent inquiries into expanding my education at Harvard or Yale… Dear Harvard University Office of Admissions: I went to Harvard University. Unfortunately, I don’t qualify to be an [...]

Math is a numbers game. One way to play it is with a calculator. Since I never played the numbers very well, I consulted Texas Instruments to see if using better equipment might hold the answers… Dear Instrumentalists from Texas: Calculators from Texas Instruments look very sophisticated. I’ve read descriptions on your website such as; [...]

My father always stressed the importance of proper spelling and the value of developing a strong vocabulary. He was such a stickler about it, that even when I sent letters home from camp, he would return them corrected in red. So I knew he would be so very proud of me when I did some [...]