It was a dark and stormy night. So begins the long and increasingly convoluted prose of Edwards Bulwer-Lytton’s best-known novel. Today the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest asks contestants for fanciful first sentences that are similarly...
Damien from New York City, NY, is curious about the term his Hungarian grandmother used for the crust that forms at the corners of your eyes after a night’s sleep. The Hungarian word for eye boogers is csipa, pronounced “CHEE-pah.”...
Another term for moth is miller or dusty miller, so named the powdery wings of these insects recall the image of a miller — someone who grinds grain — covered in flour. That’s also the inspiration behind the name of the dusty miller plant...
torch party n.— «The “torch party,” an advance crew that departs early to set up camp, was the lead element going to the Middle East, said Dusty Shenofsky, spokeswoman for the Louisiana National Guard.…“They were from a...
chicken-in-the-basket n.— «Her choice of cover versions, including songs made famous by Peggy Lee, Dusty Springfield, Nina Simone and Bobbie Gentry, underlined how far short of the standards of those great singers she fell, painfully so...