Not a good word for crossword puzzles but great for Scrabble

NPR's Robert Krulich on how one word can have many many different spellings.

Mackerel, by the way, was originally an old French word, "maquerel" but when the Normans conquered the British (or was it the Angles and Saxons?) in 1066, they brought maquerel into the English language where it got bounced around quite a bit. James Gleick, the science writer, says the OED in 1989 listed 19 different mackerel spellings down through English-speaking history.

Nineteen is a lot different names to call a fish.

But when you consider that most people were illiterate, there were no dictionaries, and no notion of "correct" spellings, it would have been highly unusual for only one spelling to predominate. 

...

In its 2002 edition, The Oxford English Dictionary almost doubled the number of ancient mackerel spellings. Why?

Blame the internet.

After 1989 the internet made it easier for historians and antiquarians to scan, publish and exchange old documents. With a bigger database, all kinds of new/old spellings turned up.

Not what you say, but the way that you say it

Climate scientists gathering at a conference on Arctic warming were asked Wednesday to explain the dramatic melting in the region in layman’s terms, the Associated Press (AP) reports.

An authoritative report released at the meeting in Copenhagen showed melting ice in the Arctic could result in global sea levels rising 5 feet within this century, much higher than previous forecasts.

James White of the University of Colorado at Boulder told fellow researchers to use plain language when describing their research to a general audience. Focusing on the reports technical details could obscure the basic science. To put it bluntly, “if you put more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, it will get warmer,” he said.

US climate scientist Robert Corell said it was pertinent to try to reach out to all members of society to spread awareness of Arctic melt and the impact it has on the whole world.

“Stop speaking in code. Rather than 'anthropogenic,' you could say 'human caused,” Corell said at the conference of nearly 400 scientists.

The Arctic has been warming at twice the global average in recent decades, and the latest five-year period is the warmest since measurements began more than 100 years ago, according to the report by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program.