A California caller is puzzled as to why the prefix un- seems to function in two entirely different ways in the terms undone and unmarried. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Conflicting Meanings of Prefix “Un”” Hello, you have A Way...
whoop-de-doo
n.— «It has a whoop-dee-doo…much to the delight of the city’s young bicycle riders.» —“City’s Bike Motocross Course a Hit” by Robert J. Allan Los Angeles Times Jan. 13, 1974. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
whoop-de-doo n.— «Another rider racing down the straight called the “L.I.E.” (after the Long Island Expressway) fails to negotiate the washboard bumps, or “whoop-do-dos,” as he should have and very nearly falls.» —“A Boom Grows in the Dust” by John...
whoop de doo n.— «On the second day, we encountered 29 km of whoop-de-doos. For those unfamiliar with dirt bike vernacular, picture the harshest mogul run you’ve ever seen, lay it out horizontally, throw in some sand and you have whoops. It was...
BSO n.— «But you see the neat part about it was that we usually only define success in terms of that and they use a lovely term called BSO’s, bright shiny objects, and most of us think that success is the accumulation of bright shiny objects for...
