POSSLQ was devised by a worker at the U.S. Census Bureau as an acronym for Person of Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters or Partner of Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters. Pronounced “possle-cue,” this term caught on briefly in the early 1970s and was further popularized by broadcaster Charles Osgood who wrote a clever poem that used it.This is part of a complete episode.
According to Gobsmacked: The British Invasion of American English (Bookshop|Amazon) by Ben Yagoda, the word smarmy, meaning “unctuous” or “ingratiating,” may come from a 19th-century magazine contest, in which readers sent in...
Mary Beth in Greenville, South Carolina, wonders: Why do we say four-oh-nine for the number 409 instead of four-zero-nine or four-aught-nine? What are the rules for saying either zero or oh or aught or ought to indicate that arithmetical symbol...
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