Fans of the popular British baking show know that you don’t want your many-layered cake to concertina, or “collapse like an accordion.” The verb concertina, in this sense, derives from the name of an accordion-like instrument. This is part of a...
POSSLQ was devised by a worker at the U.S. Census Bureau as an acronym for Person of Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters or Partner of Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters. Pronounced “possle-cue,” this term caught on briefly in the early 1970s and...
Novelist Charles Dickens created many unforgettable characters, but he’s also responsible for coining or popularizing lots of words, like “flummox” and “butterfingers.” Also, the life’s work of slang lexicographer Jonathon Green is now available to...
There’s no definite rule for putting the apostrophe “s” after names like Liz or Alex when talking about Liz’s wedding or Alex’s school, but we know for certain that most people say, and write out, the possessive “s.” This is part of a complete...