French haute cuisine is admired around the world, and it’s no secret that words related to good food often come (like haute cuisine) from French. As this month’s Word Stories instalment reminds us, though, many down-to-earth culinary terms are of French origin as well.

Let’s take a look at become and other verbs of change, including go, come, turn and get, which have each evolved to describe this central element of our evolutionary world, and have each cultivated individual particularities on the way. Why can we say that dreams come true and things go wrong, but not that dreams *go true and things *come wrong? Now that you’ve gotten curious, read ahead to become enlightened.

March is the month when the great bears of northern climates begin to emerge from their long winter’s naps. This Word Stories instalment highlights some surprising ways that bears pop up in the history of the English language, beginning with the fact that the native English word for “bear” has mysteriously gone missing.