An alcoholic who’s been sober for 29 years wonders if she’s overly sensitive to the terms non-alcoholic and alcohol-free being used with reference to food and drink. The problem is that alcoholic has more than one meaning. It can refer...
The adjective corny describes someone or something “unsophisticated” or “naive.” This sense of corny goes back at least as far as the 1920s. Seed catalogs of the time often contained bits of goofy jokes and broad humor...
Since the 13th century, the adjective wicked has meant “bad” or “evil.” So why do people in New England use wicked as an intensifying adverb to mean “very” or “extremely”? This is part of a complete...
Why would we describe something as having a meteoric rise when meteors fall to the ground? The adjective meteoric refers to the speed and duration of a meteor, not its direction. This is part of a complete episode.
Chris in Omaha, Nebraska, asks about the use of the adjective husky to describe the boys’ clothing section in a department store. This coded term refers to clothes made for heavier fellows. Husky was originally a positive term connoting the...
Lisa calls from Huntsville, Alabama, to say that whenever Lisa was looking sharp in an attractive dress, one “tight enough to show that you’re a woman and loose enough to show that you’re a lady,” her mother would compliment...