Paula from Palm City, Florida, wants to know: What’s so cute about buttons, anyway? Like the expressions cute as a bug and cute as a bug’s ear, this one seems to derive from cute meaning delicate and small. She raises another interesting...
If you’re looking for a clever way to straddle the glass-half-empty line, try using litotes, or understated slights turned positive. For example, the guy you met for a blind date was really not unattractive. This is part of a complete episode...
A North Carolina woman says when she told her friend she had a TL for her, the friend had no idea what she was talking about. She learns that the term is a shortened form of a secondhand compliment also known as a trade-last or last-go-trade. This...
1661
n.— «Great i am now a 1661 and that is only a compliment from behind.» —“1661 and the fourth bell” by nettymania Nettymania (United Kingdom) Oct. 17, 2006. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
praise sandwich n. criticism prefaced by and followed by compliments. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)