Chris in Omaha, Nebraska, asks about the use of the adjective husky to describe the boys’ clothing section in a department store. This coded term refers to clothes made for heavier fellows. Husky was originally a positive term connoting the idea of being “strong” and “vigorous,” a reference to the tough outer husk of a plant. This husky has nothing to do with the use of husky to denote the thick-coated breed of working dog. That word is a corruption of the same indigenous term that produced the outdated word Eskimo, used to denote some native peoples of Canada and now often considered offensive. This is part of a complete episode.
Unparalleled misalignments are pairs of phrases in which the words in one phrase are each synonyms of the words in the other, but the phrases themselves mean different things. For example, the phrase blanket statement can be paired with cover story...
Jameela in Charlotte, North Carolina, says her family refers to their television’s remote control as the clicker, but her friends insist on calling it the remote. These devices go by other names as well, including doofer, flicker, zapper, and...
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