grandmother cell n. a neuron that is said to fire when a person recognizes a single individual. Editorial Note: This term is directly tied to a theory of neurology which posits that individual brain cells contain individual memories, as opposed to each memory being stored across a matrix of cells. Etymological Note: Jerome Lettvin is often credit with coining this term, but that has not been verified. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Rose in Lebanon, Virginia recalls a phrase passed down from her great-grandmother: The night before the first day of school, parents would come into the children’s bedroom and say in a singsong voice: School butter, school butter. This...
Diana from Tucson, Arizona, reports that when she was young, her Irish grandmother would chase her and her misbehaving siblings around the house yelling, “You omadhauns!” Also spelled amadán, this word of Celtic origin means...