Email us: You can also join the conversation at our website. So which of the many, many meanings of to run strikes you as the most interesting or curious? Give us a call: 80. Definitions begin with, to go with quick steps on alternate feet, and go on and on for 75 columns of type and 645 meanings for the verb form alone. In yesterday's New York Times, author Simon Winchester reports we have a winner, the seemingly humble three-letter word, run. Anyway, let me read the introduction so carefully prepared beforehand.Īs lexicographers prepare the new edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, they've debated which of all the verbs in the English language enjoys the most meanings, which of the three quarters of a million or so words that make up our language is the most complex.

I just thought that you might find that interesting.ĬONAN: And we're sorry for your loss, Simon.ĬONAN: And it's good of you to be with us on a day - I know you're getting ready to fly to the funeral.ĬONAN. And he felt that Memorial Day in America, for him, despite being an English soldier, was important too. And he said these were the people that brought me freedom and Europe freedom. My father, who indeed died last Monday, he was a tank commander in the British Army and he was captured on the 9th of June, 1944, just three days after D-Day and was taken off to a prisoner of war camp and was - when he was released, he was liberated ultimately by Americans.Īnd he, for the rest of his life, had an enormous affection for Americans and would take me at least once a year to the huge and wonderfully kept American cemetery just outside the city of Cambridge in England. And I just thought, listening to all those wonderful and very moving calls just now, that I'd add my two cents worth or tuppence worth. SIMON WINCHESTER (Author): Well, thank you, Neal, very much. And he joins us now on the line from Massachusetts. But before we move on to that, Simon Winchester's father just died, and Simon has one more Memorial Day memory for us.

And we've called our friend, Simon Winchester, to talk about, well, words, which is something we often talk with him about.

Whats another word for running