Rina Miller

Merriam Websters’s definition of retronym is a term consisting of a noun and a modifier which specifies the original meaning of the noun. “Film camera” is a retronym.

Every Sunday, Michigan Radio’s Rina Miller talks with Anne Curzan a professor of English at the University of Michigan, specializing in linguistics.

In many cases the retronym is formed in response to technological advances.

“We now specify a land line because when you say phone people may assume it’s a cell phone and we need to now, talking about a phone, say a land line,” said Curzan.

The Michigan legislature is wrapping up business before the end of the year and Snyder gave an address this week about the environment. This week Jack Lessenberry and Rina Miller discuss how the State House rejected a state-run federal health exchange, and the State Senate passed a regional transit authority for southeast Michigan. Lessenberry also reflected on Snyder's environmental address.

Twitter was abuzz this morning on the University of Michigan campus.

That's how 50 teams of U-M faculty members learned they had been awarded grants worth $60,000 dollars each to participate in a pilot program called MCubed.

The program  encourages campus-wide research collaboration by teaming faculty members from different schools to share ideas.

The money will be used to hire students for a wide scope of  projects. Engineers might work with nurses and architects , while physicists could work with musicians and ophthalmologists.

About a half million more Michigan residents would be covered by Medicaid  if the state implements an expansion of the program offered by the federal government.

Some two million people in Michigan who live below the poverty line are already receiving Medicaid to cover hospital and doctor visits,  prescriptions and other services.

Under the Affordable Care Act, Michigan could take advantage of 100 percent federal financing for the first couple of years to expand the program and 90 percent after that.

Why do some people say, “I could care less” to mean they don’t care? It doesn't make sense. The expression is, "I couldn't care less," right?

“What has happened here, as far as I can tell, is that speakers are no longer parsing this phrase for every word. And this is what happens with idioms. Idioms take on a meaning that surpasses their parts,” says Anne Curzan, a professor of English at the University of Michigan.

“I think the ‘less’ there feels negative to speakers. It already says, ‘I don’t care,’ so for them, ‘I could care less -- I couldn’t care less,’ they mean the same thing,” she says.

Michigan Radio’s Rina Miller asks Curzan to explain this idiom, “Butter would not melt in her mouth.”

If you're planning to buy some big-ticket items this holiday season, you may want to check your insurance policy first.

Michigan State University law students are helping some Ingham County residents avoid eviction. 

A new study finds the number of state financial aid grants distributed in Michigan is falling, and that's making it harder for college students to come up with tuition. 

That's especially true for poorer students in Michigan.

Karen Holcomb-Merrill is with the Michigan League for Public Policy, which looked at the pattern of grants over the past decade.

“People tell me that the pronoun ‘they’ cannot be singular. But here’s the thing - it already is,” says Anne Curzan. She’s a professor of English at the University of Michigan who specializes in linguistics.

Most speakers already use “they” as a singular pronoun in speech.

“In writing, we are told to use ‘he’ or ‘she,’ or change the whole sentence,” Curzan says.

English teachers have been telling us for years that “they” is not a singular pronoun. But, Curzan offers a few examples of indefinite pronouns that speakers make singular.

The number of Michigan students who attend charter schools is rising. 

There are 277 charter schools in Michigan, and that number could grow.

Dan Quisenberry is president of the Michigan Association of Public School Academies.

He says five Michigan cities now rank in the top 20 for the percentage of students enrolled in charter schools.

This week Rina Miller and Jack Lessenberry discuss how Michigan will comply with the Affordable Care Act, and how the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Michigan's constitutional ban on affirmative action does not hold up under the U.S. Constitution's equal protection clause. Lessenberry also remembered the late former first lady, Helen Millikin.

The superintendent of Flint Public Schools is stepping down. 

Linda Thompson took the helm of the troubled Flint school district in 2008.

The district was hemorrhaging red ink, had a shrinking school population  and poor academic performance.

The elections may be over, but there's still uncertainty about how the Affordable Care Act will affect small businesses.

Michael Rogers is with the Small Business Association of Michigan.  He says the biggest provisions of the ACA won't go into effect until 2014,  but employers will soon have to make a lot of decisions about  how the changes in health insurance will affect them.

"There's no one-size-fits-all," Rogers says. "It's going to impact every small business differently, depending on the number of employees they have."

A Michigan mother whose twins were conceived using  in-vitro technology after their father died is asking the state Supreme Court to allow the children to get death benefits and inheritance rights.

Pam and Jeff Mattison had a daughter using in-vitro fertilization, and wanted more children.

But Jeff Mattison was ill, and died just before the procedure was performed again.

Pam Mattison had a twin boy and girl nine months after her husband died. She applied for Social Security benefits for the twins, but was denied.