Early 20th-century humorist Gelett Burgess is credited with coining the word blurb for “a bit of promotional language,” such as recommendations on a book jacket. To create a buzz for his 1906 book Are You A Bromide?, Burgess devised advertising copy featuring a shouting woman named Miss Belinda Blurb next to text effusively praising the book, which jokingly divided people into two categories: Bromides, given to boring and sedate pronouncements, and Sulphites, who are peppy and energetic. This helped popularize the use of bromide, which came to mean more generally “platitude” or “cliché.” Burgess also wrote the poem “The Purple Cow.”This is part of a complete episode.
What if, instead of being an inanimate object, a dictionary were alive? That’s the idea behind a lavishly illustrated new children’s book called The Dictionary Story (Bookshop|Amazon) by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston. This is part of a...
If someone’s got melon, it means they’re smart. The expression most likely arose because of the resemblance between a melon and a human head. Several other foods are associated with having brains, including a cabbage, a gourd, and even a...
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