Amy from Charlotte, North Carolina, reports a dispute arose when visiting her brother’s family. Is a large container for storing sugar properly called a can or a canister? The answer involves prototype theory, which in cognitive linguistics and...
A fussbudget is someone who’s “ill-tempered” or “overly critical,” the -budget in this term deriving from an old word for “purse” or “pouch.” Variants include fussy-budget, fuss-a-budget, and...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski has a puzzle of Container Clues, in which one word is inserted whole into another to create a new word. For example, if the definition is “kind of potatoes,” and the clue is “she is in mad,” what kind...