In 2006, the International Astronomical Union kicked Pluto off its planetary pedestal. In his delightful book How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming (Bookshop|Amazon) astronomer Mike Brown recounts the events leading up to the demotion of that...
Long before Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote the Little House on the Prairie (Bookshop|Amazon), she worked as a journalist, chronicling life in the Ozarks. In one of her early writings, Wilder refers to what she calls “the famous question”:...
snow-cone v.— «But how many close plays at first are there? How many near catches in the outfield that are called as a catch when they are “snow-coned?”» —“MLB: Rekindle the Instant Replay Controversy” by...
wash-ashore n.— «The latest demand—made this month in a legal notice by San Francisco homeowners looking to sell their waterfront land for a tidy $10.75 million—has sparked what longtime Chatham resident Ned Webster calls “the big...
Hispandering n.—Gloss: pandering to Hispanics. «The Scrum pays close attention to the 2004 presidential race, noticing Dick Gephardt’s recent Hispandering proposal to “legalize undocumented immigrants who have lived in the United...
soring n.— «But he also served during a period of controversy, as horse inspectors clamped down in recent years on the mistreatment of horses through a practice known as soring. In some cases, trainers used chemicals or hoof devices to...
