What makes a great first line of a book? How do the best authors put together an initial sentence that draws you in and makes you want to read more? We’re talking about the openings of such novels as George Orwell’s 1984...
To slip someone a mickey means to doctor a drink and give it to an unwitting recipient. The phrase goes back to Mickey Finn of the Lone Star Saloon in Chicago, who in the late 19th century was notorious for drugging certain customers and relieving...
How did the term Bohemian come to be associated with literary and artistic nonconformists who live outside mainstream society? In the early 19th century, the French term La bohème was applied to the Romani people, also known as the Roma, a...
How could you stop reading after a novel that begins like this? I had this story from one who had no business to tell me, or to any other. That’s the first line of Tarzan of the Apes (Bookshop|Amazon) by Edgar Rice Burroughs. This is part of a...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski has been pondering those old digital displays on car dashboards that sometimes cut off part of the name of the song playing on the radio. For example, what song would really be playing if the truncated title was...
Rich, an audiobook narrator from Tucson, Arizona, wonders how lexicographers decide which pronunciations are preferred. He specifically wonders about pronouncing the word aioli. This is part of a complete episode.
