When a British tabloid reporter writing about a crocodile attack needed a synonym for crocodile, he went with knobbly monster, now a joking term for similarly creative ways of avoiding repetition. Juliet and Matthew Maguire, described by The...
If a king sleeps on a king-size mattress and queen sleeps on a queen-sized mattress, what does a prince sleep on? This riddle—or its answer—may keep you up at night. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Royal Riddle” So if a king...
The archaic English word ruelle means “the space between a bed and the wall.” It’s adapted from French ruelle meaning “a small alley or lane.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Ruelle, Meaning the Space Between the Bed and the Wall”...
If you’re going up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire, then you’re going up to bed. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Up the Hill to Bedfordshire, Down the Hall to the Cannes?” Grant, I was pleased recently to learn the term wooden...
Janet calls from Aiken, South Carolina, to say that her father used to ask Have you dressed your bed? meaning “Have you made your bed?” The word dress likely derives from Latin dirigere, meaning “to straighten” or “to guide,” the source of the...
Dan from Elmira, New York, wonders if there’s such a thing as “structural” onomatopoeia, where the visual appearance or architecture of a written word suggests the meaning of the word. For example, he says, the word level is a palindrome — a word...