If you’re ever near a sundial, step closer and look for a message. Many sundials bear haunting, poetic inscriptions about the brevity of life. Plus, language development in toddlers: why and how little ones pick up the exclamation Uh-oh...
The term elbow clerk, encountered at a conference of judges and lawyers, refers to a clerk who works directly in a judge’s chambers, right at the judge’s elbow. It suggests an all-purpose helper who is always on hand, though the phrase also invites...
Elaine in Redlands, California, grew up in east Tennessee using commode for the bathroom fixture, while her Ohio-born husband said toilet. Historically, a commode was a piece of furniture, sometimes one that held or enclosed a chamber pot, and the...
hotline v.— «Senate conservatives are upset that the leaders of both parties in the chamber have in recent years increasingly used a practice known as “hotlining” bills—previously used to quickly move noncontroversial bills or simple...