When lexicographers look at linguistic corpora, they find that the color name hazel is most often followed by the word brown. The descriptive term hazel blue, as in hazel blue eyes, is rarely used. If you ever get tired of using the word hazel, you...
What exactly is a planet? Controversy over this question led to Pluto’s redefinition, along with a brand-new English word. And: Some people now use the phrase all the things! to mean and whatnot or you know what I mean. This new sense of all the...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski has been thumbing through The Devil’s Dictionary (Bookshop|Amazon), the satirical work by Ambrose Bierce that provides cheeky definitions for familiar words. For example, Bierce defines the word positive as “mistaken at the...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski presents a version of cryptic crosswords: double-definition clues for four-letter words. For example, what might the answer be if a punny crossword clue is “Sad feathers”? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “We...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski’s puzzle features sentences that include a short word that anagrams to another word, and is defined by yet another word in the sentence. For example, if the clue is I can get no research done because the room is so dusty...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski’s puzzle this week is inspired by social distancing. The first and last letters of each one-word answer are the same, but they’re separated by six letters. For example, what eight-letter word, beginning and ending with the...
