John Ayto News Today

The OED is the definitive record of the English language, featuring 600,000 words, 3 million quotations, and over 1,000 years of English.

Salad dressing has been around for thousands of years, dating back to its origins in ancient Babylon. Here's all you need to know about it about this condiment.

Here is a list of dishes that used to be popular, many of which persist with a retro bias if they continue to be made, eaten, or enjoyed at all.

The Diner's Dictionary: Food and Drink from A to Z by Ayto, John at AbeBooks.co.uk - ISBN 10:  0198661932 - ISBN 13:  9780198661931 - Oxford University Press - 1993 - Hardcover

As you make your yuletide preparations, ever wonder where some of the season’s strange words come from? Well, our linguistic experts have the answers.

In the US Congress the filibuster tactic is only feasible in the Senate. In the House of Representatives the speakers in a debate are under a time limit...

Right now, at this very moment, 4.20pm, 10 March 2021, there is a slogan t-shirt for sale on Amazon that reads “Cabbage[,] If sadness was a vegetable”. It is not the only – and certainly not the wittiest – entry in the unfortunate body of cabbage slander that floats around the internet and in the hearts of the nutritionally ungrateful. Websites such as food.com offer up recipes under the header “Cabbage for those who dislike cabbage”. An article on something called Texarkana Gazett...