A 23-year-old says that since her 75-year-old dad has now retired, he’s finally ready to learn to text and share memes. What’s the best way to introduce him to the world of social media and communicating with graphics? There are several helpful strategies: Show him how to find and send animated GIFs to express a particular emotion. Help him set up an Instagram account and follow some other users who post about topics he likes, and encourage him to share images he finds interesting, so their communication isn’t just one-way. Send him memes based on the pop culture he knows — television shows from the 1970s, for example — and show him how to search the database at Know Your Meme so he can learn about the ones he doesn’t understand. This is part of a complete episode.
Susie Dent’s murder mystery Guilty by Definition (Bookshop|Amazon) follows a lexicographer in Oxford who becomes a sleuth of a different kind, seeking the culprit in a long-unsolved killing. A lexicographer herself, Dent includes lots of obscure and...
Mona from Riverview, Florida, grew up understanding that the word schmooze, which comes from Yiddish, meant simply “to mingle and chat” at parties, but when she fondly referred to her friend as a schmoozer, the friend was insulted, assuming that a...
