︎spit take
n.— «The seventh annual weekend festival, which opens tomorrow night and comprises more than 50 events, will include an encore interview of Jon Stewart by New Yorker Editor David Remnick to benefit the U.S.O. When he signed up for last year’s chat with Stewart, Remnick says, “I didn’t know people still did a spit take. But I asked him some idiotic questions, and I ended up with water all over my shirt.”» —“New Yorker Fest: Wit, Lit And Spit” by Kyle Smith New York Post Oct. 5, 2006. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
British broadcaster, comedian, and logophile Stephen Fry offers a helpful if tongue-in-cheek suggestion in his newsletter The Fry Corner: Let’s all write AI, the shortened form of artificial intelligence, as Ai. Fry reasons that the upper-case...
Imagine telling someone how to get to your home, but without using the name of your street, or any other street within ten miles. Could you do it? We take street names for granted, but these words are useful for far more, like applying for a job or...