The American spelling is older. Samuel Johnson, who wrote the first British dictionary, favoured Frenchified spellings that had been introduced in the 18th century. Noah Webster, who wrote the first American dictionary, stuck with older spellings Colonists brought from England in the 17th century.

Sacher-Masoch (1836 – 1895) was an Austrian novelist and journalist who explored masochistic pleasure in his writing.

Nom de plume is a faux-french expression. The French equivalent is nom de guerre.

That’s a myth. Counting generously, Inuit have maybe a dozen words for snow, which is about the same as English.

The person responsible for this convention is Anne Fisher, an 18th century school mistress who was the first woman to write an English Grammar book.

It’s true!

In Morse code SOS (… – – – …) is used as a distress signal because it’s simple and distinctive. Save Our Ship is a reverse engineered acronym.

This quote was pinned on Churchill in 1944, but was first found in a 1942 Wall Street Journal article attributed to an unnamed writer in “a certain government department.”

This is a hoax. The made-up story goes that Brassière sold the undergarments which were based on designs by German-born Otto Titzling.

A French woman wears a peignoir or a chemise de nuit