Is versing, meaning “competing against someone,” a real verb? In the past thirty years, this term has grown in popularity because versus, when spoken, sounds like a conjugated verb. So youngsters especially will talk about one team getting ready to...
I have a new neighbor, and I’ve been electronically snooping on him or her. I say “him or her” because the surveillance device is the PandaCam at the San Diego Zoo, which welcomed a bouncing baby panda a few weeks ago. And as the...
Should you use myriad or myriad of? Actually, either is fine. Here’s what David Foster Wallace had to say about the question in his commentary for the Oxford American Writer’s Thesaurus: “[A]ny reader who’s bugged by a myriad...
Jeff from Columbus, Indiana, asks about his father’s use of the expression “not one iota” to mean “not one bit.” An iota is the smallest letter in the Greek alphabet, and ancient Greek speakers used the word for something exceedingly tiny. The...
Does the expression “call a spade a spade” have racist roots? Martha explains that it derives from an ancient Greek phrase, but cautions against its use nevertheless. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Call a Spade...
Feel like having a little “hair of the dog”? Grant and Martha explain what dog hair has to do with hangover cures. And what do you call it when random objects form a recognizable image, like a cloud resembling a bunny, or the image of Elvis in...
