First the easy part: is the adverb anymore properly spelled as one word or two? The one-word styling is more common nowadays (or should we say, “the one-word styling is more common anymore”?), but the two-word form is still perfectly acceptable. Just remember that there is a difference between the adverb anymore (”We don’t go out anymore”) and the phrase any more where more acts as a pronoun or an adjective (”I can’t eat any more pizza”). In the latter case, any and more are always distinct words.

Easy enough? Now let’s move on to the harder issue. No one seems to object to the use of anymore in questions (”Do you listen to the radio anymore?”), in conditional contexts (”If you do that anymore, I’m leaving!”), or in negative contexts (”I won’t play it anymore”).

But some folks think the use of anymore in positive statements (”It… seems to me that all I do anymore is go to funerals.”) is substandard. Is it? Not according to the people who track how English is actually used. The respected Dictionary of American Regional English reports that the positive anymore turns up in all dialect areas of the U.S. except New England. It is used by people of all educational levels and in all walks of life. In fact, our example “all I do anymore is go to funerals” is a quotation from President Harry S. Truman.

All we do anymore is answer your mail — and we like it! Our e-mail address is wftw@aol.com. Our street address is Word for the Wise, 318 Central Avenue, Albany, New York 12206.

Production and research support for Word for the Wise comes from Merriam-Webster, publisher of language reference books and CD’s including Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage.

Potters have a number of special terms for clay-specific processes. For example, the process of making slip, a mixture of clay and water used to both decorate and cement clay, is known as blunging. The verb blunge (meaning “to beat up and mix in water”) is itself a mix of blend plus plunge; the clay-based noun slip has an ancestor in the Old English word for “slime.”

Once slip is applied to pottery (either as decoration or to improve its surface texture) it is called engobe. That name comes from French, where the verb engober means “to cover with slip.” Another French borrowing potters use is malaxage, which means “knead” in French; in English it names the act of softening clay by moistening and working it.

The process of trimming off excess clay at the seams of cast and partly dried pottery ware is known as fettling, after the Middle English verb meaning “to shape or prepare.” The Latin lutum, meaning “mud” or “clay,” gave us the verb lute, which means “to fill a crevice in half-dry ceramic ware with wet clay.” If to lute is to seal, it makes sense that the term for “taking the clay from something” is unlute.

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Production and research support for Word for the Wise comes from Merriam-Webster, publisher of language reference books and CD’s including Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged.

All these senses are true to the history of the word secretariat, which (since the days of Medieval Latin) has meant basically “secretary” or “confidante.” But official officers and efficient clerical staff aren’t what we had in mind when we introduced the subject of secretariat.

Instead, we were remembering the very distinctive equine Secretariat who made history on June 9, 1973 by becoming the first horse in twenty five years to win the coveted Triple Crown. That particular Secretariat certainly ruled the racetrack that year, and although his wins were efficient and official, he certainly wasn’t government issue.

Of course, in horse racing, the term Triple Crown is an unofficial title a horse can attain by winning three of the sport’s premier races, the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes, and Belmont Stakes. But did you know that humans can also gain a Triple Crown? Actually, only baseball players can do it, and to earn that title, a player must lead the league in batting average, home runs, and runs batted in. Need an example? Think Boston Red Sox outfielder Carl Yastrzemski.

Race to your computer and write to us. Our e-mail address is wftw@aol.com. Our street address is Word for the Wise, 318 Central Avenue, Albany, New York 12206.

Special thanks today to Kara Noble. Production and research support for Word for the Wise comes from Merriam-Webster, publisher of language reference books and CD’s including Merriam-Webster’s Geographical Dictionary, Third Edition.

We can thank the ancient Romans for the monetary mint that names the place where coins are made. When the Romans established a mint at a temple of the goddess Juno Moneta, the epithet moneta became a generic Latin term for a place where money is made. Moneta meandered through Europe and eventually into Old English, where it was transformed into the modern mint in the 15th century. The monetary noun mint inspired both the 16th-century coinage of mint the verb and also the 20th-century adjectival mint, meaning “unmarred as if fresh from a mint.”

As you may have suspected, there is no etymological connection between the money mint and the mint naming certain aromatic plants. In fact, the name of the genus mentha mint is even older than the monetary mint; it has its roots in a word of non-Indo-European origin.

Finally, there’s the Scottish mint, distantly related to the Old English word for “mind.” This mint means everything from “intend” to “suggest” to “aspire” and “hint.”

We won’t mince words: we like hearing from you. Our e-mail address is wftw@aol.com. Our street address is Word for the Wise, 318 Central Avenue, Albany, New York 12206.

Shawn Dudley is our audio engineer. Production and research support for Word for the Wise comes from Merriam-Webster, publisher of language reference books and CD’s including Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition.

Odds are, you’re familiar with the adjective odd, but you may have never heard about odd’s ancestor oddi. That Old Norse term names a point of land, a triangle, or an odd number.

In English, something odd can be without its corresponding mate (an odd shoe), or it can be left over after others are paired or grouped (unaccompanied by his wife, he was the odd dinner guest), or it can be separated from a set or series (only three odd volumes remained from the original set). Mathematicians assign odd to natural numbers not evenly divisible by two and also to a type of mathematical function. Odd has other senses too: something “occasional, remote, or differing markedly from the usual, ordinary, or accepted.”

The terms oddball and odd fish are twentieth century coinages used to name the odd man out, an eccentric person who differs from the other members of a group. And oddity, David Bowie’s term of choice? An oddity names a peculiar person, thing, event, or trait. You’re right in guessing oddity predates the space program; it first appeared in print in English in 1713 … as it happens, an odd year.

We’re evenhanded about odd questions. Our e-mail address is wftw@aol.com. Our street address is Word for the Wise, 318 Central Avenue, Albany, New York 12206.

Production and research support for Word for the Wise comes from Merriam-Webster, publisher of language reference books and CD’s including Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition.

We don’t know whether the very first flag was waved in ancient China or ancient India, but we do know that those standards (standard names the often elongated flag of an individual, cause, party, or unit, especially one serving as a rallying point) were used in both countries 1,000 years ago. In China, where the early royal flag was treated as if it were the king himself, touching the flag-bearer was a crime. In India, the flag was the first object of attack in battle, and its fall meant confusion if not defeat.

The earliest known use of the word flag in English dates from 1530. Lexicographers theorize that the fabric flag takes its name from the floral flag, a loose grouping of plants that includes both the iris and the cattail.

Over the years, cloth flags have developed specific uses. A black flag has long symbolized pirates, and a yellow flag signals infectious illness. A red flag can be either a warning signal or an attention getter (especially irritated attention). A white flag is a flag of truce the world over, while a flag at half-mast is the universal symbol of mourning.

Want to flag us down? Our e-mail address is wftw@aol.com. Our street address is Word for the Wise, 318 Central Avenue, Albany, New York 12206.

Shawn Dudley is our audio engineer. Production and research support for Word for the Wise comes from Merriam-Webster, publisher of language reference books and CD’s including Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition.

Plato gave swans the gift of prophecy, observing that “when they perceive that they must die, having sung all their life long, do then sing more lustily than ever.”

A 16th century madrigal saw things slightly differently. Its lines describe “The silver swan, who living had no note/When death approached unlocked her silent throat;/Leaning her breast against the reedy shore/Thus sung her first and last, and sung no more.”

William Shakespeare (who was himself called the sweet swan of Avon, according to Ben Jonson) wrote both of “[making] a swanlike end/Fading in music” and also about “play[ing] the swan and [dying] in music.”

A few hundred years later, in 1821, Lord Byron made his poetic plea to be placed “on Sunium’s marble steep/[where]…swanlike [he could] sing and die.” In 1828, only months before his death, Franz Schubert published a series entitled Schwanengesang (literally swan song), but they were not in fact his final works.

So when did the actual phrase swan song first appear in English? Credit belongs to historian, essayist, and Germanophile Thomas Carlyle, who translated the phrase from the German in 1831.

Send your questions our way. Our e-mail address is wftw@aol.com. Our street address is Word for the Wise, 318 Central Avenue, Albany, New York 12206.

Shawn Dudley is our audio engineer. Production and research support for Word for the Wise comes from Merriam-Webster, publisher of language reference books and CD’s including Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition.

English is filled with words that people confuse in unexpected ways — sometimes ways that even seem downright silly. Need an example? Consider the words nyctalopia and hemeralopia.

Nyctalopia is a defect of vision characterized by reduced visual capacity in faint light or at night. The general public sometimes calls this visual difficulty night blindness, and the word nyctalopia has its roots in the Greek words for “night,” “eye,” and “blind.”

The opposite of of nyctalopia is hemeralopia, a defect of vision characterized by reduced visual capacity in bright lights. Sometimes called day blindness, the term hemeralopia has its roots in the Greek words for “day,” “eye,” and “blind.”

Those words seem to be antonyms, but English is odd and nyctalopia is sometimes used as a synonym of hemeralopia and hemeralopia is occasionally used to refer to nyctalopia. How can that be? Well, medical professionals don’t scramble the two that way, but laypersons sometimes do — probably just out of simple confusion. Our advice for avoiding such mix-ups is to keep your eye on your meaning, and don’t blind yourself to context.

Having difficulty seeing our meaning? Write to us. Our e-mail address is wftw@aol.com. Our street address is Word for the Wise, 318 Central Avenue, Albany, New York 12206.

Production and research support for Word for the Wise comes from Merriam-Webster, publisher of language reference books and CD’s including Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition.

For starters, no one knows exactly how the thickset rodents, native to North and Central America, came by their name. According to one theory, gopher is a shortening of me gopher. According to another theory, the word comes from gaufre (”honeycomb” in French), because the gopher’s subterranean tunnels resemble a honeycomb.

What we do know is that the word gopher has been around for more than 200; it first appeared in print in 1791. We also know that gopher is applied to many animals, from a burrowing land tortoise whose scientific name is Gopher us Polyphemus to a pocket gopher, whose fur-lined cheek pouches open externally. It is also used for ground squirrels and the prairie dog found throughout Minnesota and the western plains.

Can you guess which state counts gopher as a traditional nickname for its residents? That’s right: Minnesota, in recognition of the large prairie mole native to that state.

If you have a question you want to ask, “gopher” it; we’ll ferret out the answer. Our e-mail address is wftw@aol.com. Our street address is Word for the Wise, 318 Central Avenue, Albany, New York 12206.

Production and research support for Word for the Wise comes from Merriam-Webster, publisher of language reference books and CD’s including Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition.

The adjective paternal was born of pater (Latin for “father”) in the 15th century. The English Pater itself dates back to the 14th century, when it was borrowed into our language as a shortening of the Latin paternoster (literally, “Our Father”). Pater can still refer to the Lord’s Prayer, but when you hear British speakers pronounce the word \pay-ter\, they are using it in the generic sense “father.”

If you guessed that the English father is distantly related to the Latin pater, pat yourself on the back. Other linguistic relatives of that ancient word (father is as old as our language itself) include pater and pitri, the Greek and Sanskrit terms for “father.”

Do you know how daddy and papa fit into the picture? Both terms are believed to have their origins in baby talk, and both are believed to share those same linguistic forefathers. Dad and daddy first appeared in English print in the 15th century and papa (from the French) dates to the 17th century.

Fathers all around the world may consider themselves to be lucky dads, but the phrase lucky dad has a special meaning in Scotland. There, lucky dad is another name for a grandfather.

Enjoy the weekend and don’t forget Dad…and Granddad too. Our e-mail address is wftw@aol.com. Our street address is Word for the Wise, 318 Central Avenue, Albany, New York 12206.

Shawn Dudley is our engineer. Special thanks to Gerrys Noble and Woodworth. Production and research support for Word for the Wise comes from Merriam-Webster, publisher of language reference books and CD’s including Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition.