A caller from Princeton, Texas, remembers that after a satisfying meal, her late father used to push back from the table and say, “I am sufficiently suffonsified. Anything more would be purely obnoxious to my taste. No thank you.” What...
Humorist Roy Blount Jr. sits down with Grant for a conversation about the controversy over writers’ rights, the Amazon Kindle 2, Roy’s recent book, Alphabet Juice, “sonicky” words, and noodling for catfish. He also clears up...
We recommend books that make great gifts for language lovers, talk about footwear called go-aheads, and look further into going commando. Also, was the 2008 election a historic event or an historic event?
Here’s a riddle: “Nature requires five, custom gives seven, laziness takes nine, and wickedness eleven.” Think you know the answer? You’ll find it in this week’s episode, in which Grant and Martha discuss this and other...
MTV n.— «“You can get Viread at many gay bars or clubs,” says Bob Adams, managing editor of The Advocate‘s sister publication HIV Plus, adding that when it is sold along with Viagra and crystal meth the combination is known as “MTV”—meth...
The second edition of the Oxford American Writer’s Thesaurus is chock-full of synonyms, of course, but what makes it special are the essays and usage notes by authors such as Simon Winchester, David Lehman, Zadie Smith, and David Foster...