Sara in Camden, New Jersey, wants a word for those people who are more than acquaintances, but not quite friends. She calls them friendlies, but wonders if there’s a better term. Fracquaintance, maybe? The Danish band Mew has an album calledFrengers: Not Quite Friends, But Not Quite Strangers. An anatopism is something that’s out of place—seeing someone you know from one part of your life in an entirely different context, but the playful invention anatope doesn’t quite work. Maybe Mexican Spanish, cuate, which means “buddy” or “pal”? This is part of a complete episode.
When a British tabloid reporter writing about a crocodile attack needed a synonym for crocodile, he went with knobbly monster, now a joking term for similarly creative ways of avoiding repetition. Juliet and Matthew Maguire, described by The...
At a South African boarding school, Rob picked up a phrase from Afrikaans that translates to land with your bum in the butter, meaning “to be lucky.” There are several variations in English — often with other words for “bum”, like...
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