Brittany from Indianapolis asks about the pale in pales in comparison, especially whether it refers to color, brightness, or something outshining something else. The expression uses pale in the sense of becoming faint, less bright, or diminished, a...
A civil engineer in Boston, Massachusetts, is puzzled by part of an assignment to design a driveway that traverses a stream to access a proposed development. The wetlands scientist he’s working with informed him that he’d need to design the thalweg...
Why do we refer to “testing or going beyond limits” as pushing the envelope? In aeronautics, to push the envelope means to try to go past the edge of the aircraft’s perceived capability. In the 1980s, the phrase was popularized by Tom Wolfe’s book...
Is it appropriate to use emoticons in business emails? After all, you wouldn’t write a smiley face in a printed letter, right? Martha and Grant discuss the point at which you start using those little symbols in correspondence. Call it “The Rubicon...
witness mark n. generally, an intentional, accidental, or naturally occurring spot, line, groove, or other contrasting area that serves as an indicator of certain facts; in geography and surveying, a blaze, cut, hole, paint splash, or message...
