In the early 16th century, the word bully was a term of endearment, probably stemming from Dutch boel, meaning “lover.” Shakespeare used bully to mean “a fine fellow” or “good chap.” When President Theodore Roosevelt referred to the presidency as a...
A high-school teacher in Los Angeles, California, says many of his teaching colleagues have different opinions about how to handle profanity among teenagers. The simplest solution is to prohibit all taboo language in the classroom, but acknowledge...
Plenty of people write to dictionary editors asking for words to be added. It almost never works. But what if politicians make a special request? To urge adoption of the term upstander, as in “the opposite of bystander,” to honor those who stand up...
Lena, a physician in Oceanside, California, asks about medical pimping: the ritual of a senior doctor quizzing a student, intern, or resident with questions that often get harder until the trainee misses one, sometimes in front of peers. The term...
ginger-ninja n.— «This was in response to the news about a family in Newcastle who had suffered three years of abuse—smashed windows, graffiti, physical attacks—forcing them to decamp from one council estate to another on two occasions, now pushing...
scrapper n.— «She said her two youngest children, 8 and 6, were wearing blue shirts last year and were taunted by two neighbor children who called them “scrappers,” a derogatory term for Sureño gang members.» —“Parents need to pay attention to what...
