You dream of writing the great American novel, but to make ends meet, you spend your days writing boring corporate reports. There’s a difference between writing for love and writing for a living — or is there? Does a heyday have anything to do...
Our Quiz Guy Greg Pliska has a game called Welded Palindromes, with two-word phrases spelled the same forwards and backwards. What do you call your first appearance on TV? A tube debut. What kind of beer does a king drink? Why, a regal lager, of...
In Spanish and French, if you have the equivalent of “a white night,” it means you didn’t get much sleep. In Sweden, if you have a “white week,” it means you didn’t drink a drop of alcohol. This is part of a...
Eleemosynary is the title of a play by Lee Blessing. The play celebrates this and other unusual words, including sortilege, charivari, ungulate, favonian, and logodaedaly. Martha saw a production at San Diego’s Moxie Theater, and takes the...
weed in a can n.— «“Drank” is being billed as the anti-energy drink, to help you relax and soothe out the day. The key ingredients in the grape-flavored drink are melatonin, valerian root and rose hip. Those are all herbs used to...
skin tenting n.— «There is a simple way to tell if you are dehydrated, Rodriguez said, and it is a technique called “skin tenting.” In this technique, pinch and lift up the skin on the back of the hand to form a tent, then...