Dan from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, is a jogger wants a word to say when coming up behind someone so as not to startle them. Pass on your left? Beep beep? Excuse me? Or is it better to make a non-verbal noise, like shuffling your feet or clapping your...
It’s the Up Goer Five Challenge! Try to describe something complex using only the thousand most common words in English. It’s a useful mental exercise that’s harder than you might think. Also, if you want to make a room dark, you...
When did we start using the word beep? After all, today we have car horns, microwaves and other electronic gizmos that beep, but before the early 1900s, nothing ever beeped. It makes you wonder: How did people back then know their Hot Pocket was...
Bill Watkins from Tallahassee, Florida, is having a tough time knowing which setting to use on his microwave. He figures this moment of indecision while standing there with your finger poised over the buttons deserves a name. His suggestion:...
Untz or oonce reprsents the thump of a dance beat; wub gives dubstep’s wobbling bass a little mouth-made machinery. Modern onomatopoeia—sound-imitating words from the era of computers, electronic music, and ray guns—also includes beep for a computer...
beep-beep speed
n.— «Indiana’s Courtney Roby, 5-11, 180, has beep-beep speed but doesn’t always play to it.» —“Edwards best receiver” Jaguars.com Mar. 14, 2005. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
