The word mermaid shares a common linguistic ancestor with several salty words, including marine,maritime, marinate, and the Spanish word for “ocean,” mar. The Netflix documentary MerPeople, directed by Oscar recipient Cynthia Wade, is a remarkable look at the world of amateur and professional mermaiding and the language bubbling up within it. Mers, as they call themselves, wear ornate, heavy tails of latex, silicone, or fabric, and wriggling out of one is commonly referred to as de-tailing. And the people who help carry them to and from the water are known as wranglers. Mermaiding enthusiasts belong to local pods, such as the OB merpod in San Diego, California, and some of them even greet each other with Shello!This is part of a complete episode.
When you’re talking about the location of an inanimate object, is it okay to say that it lives there, as in The peanut butter lives in that cabinet or The flashlight lives on that shelf? Strictly speaking, of course, that object isn’t...
Sean in Oneonta, New York, says that when he was growing up in New Jersey, his family would pile in the car and set off on a surprise adventure, whether a short distance or long, and the kids would be told only that they were going on Buxtehude...
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