Nancy in Aurora, Colorado, asks: Is there a better term for one’s adult offspring than childrenor kids. The list of expressions she’s pondered includes adult child, progeny, offspring, man-child, woman-child, descendant, successor,scion, offshoot, issue, fruit of one’s loins, family, lineage, line, posterity, and seed. Still, she says, none of these feels right. Is there another? 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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