I once opined in this column that English is a poor language; the justification of the opine lying in the existence of homonyms (words having the same spelling or pronunciation but different meanings) ...

Quicksand is not the fearsome geological feature movies have made it out to be. It is, however, an unusual substance. If you grew up in the 1980s or ’90s, you might fear quicksand. Evil characters in ...

If stumbling into quicksand ranks on your list of worries, don't panic. You won't sink in—at least not all the way. Real quicksand is certainly hard to get out of, but it doesn't suck people under the ...

Quicksand has a lethal reputation: a surprisingly high percentage of movie villains drown in it, and quite a few heroes have saved a damsel in distress from a silty, sloppy end. But quicksand is much ...