Gina from Dallas, Texas, asks about a family Scrabble dispute with her English-teacher sister: is the comparative form stupider, or should it be more stupid? Usage guides allow both forms, along with the superlative stupidest. Longer adjectives...
A Texas listener recounts an ongoing debate in her family’s kitchen over the exact definition of the word spatula. Is it the kitchen tool used to spread icing and level measuring cups? Something you use to flip a pancake? That item with the plastic...
A caller wants to settle a friendly argument: Is something not worth debating called a moot point or a mute point? Here’s the scene from the Friends episode that Grant mentions, in which Joey misunderstands the term as moo point. This is part of a...
May-December marriage n.— «Now, with the possible candidacy of Fred D. Thompson, the grandfatherly actor and former Republican senator from Tennessee, whose second wife is almost a quarter-century his junior, comes a less palatable inquiry that is...
skeewampus n.— «This is where it all goes a bit skeewampus (technical term meaning FUBAR).» —“Security Versus Civil Liberties Debate Bubbles to Surface Again, With No Solution in Sight” by Mike Baker Fox News Mar. 28, 2007. (source: Double-Tongued...
worm poll n. a continuous survey taken of a live audience to measure reactions to a political speech or debate. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)