If you speak a second or third language, you may remember the first time you dreamed in that new tongue. But does this milestone mean you’re actually fluent? And a couple’s dispute over the word regret: Say you wish you’d been able to meet Albert...
Amid court-ordered busing in the 1970s, a middle-school teacher tried to distract her nervous students on the first day of class with this strange assignment: find a monarch caterpillar. The result? A memorable lesson in the miracle of metamorphosis...
Some of the things kids say are so cute, it’s a crime to correct them. Over time, they’ll fix their pronunciations of callipitter (caterpillar), so enjoy those mistakes while they last. If you have a favorite little-kid mispronunciation, tell us...
A caller suspects that the word butterfly derives from a reversal of the expression “flutter by.” But is it? Her question leads to a discussion of butterfly behavior and a handy five-letter word that means “caterpillar poop.” This is part of a...
hoe-chucker n.— «The Vancouver parks board received two log-loaders yesterday from Finning Canada and Caterpillar to aid in Stanley Park’s restoration. The half-million-dollar machines, commonly called hoe chuckers, are used to play a log-sized...