What do you call an expert speller? A “Words With Friends” enthusiast wants to know. Martha tells her that a great speller is called an orthographer or orthographist, from the Latin roots ortho- meaning “straight” or...
Pity the poor typeface designer, always seeing anachronisms in movies and television. Imagine how painful it must be watching a World War II movie only to see a document printed in Snell Roundhand Bold, a font invented in 1972. Here’s typeface...
weisure n.— «The line dividing work and leisure time is blurring right before our eyes, says one expert, and it’s creating a phenomenon called “weisure time.” Many who haven’t already abandoned the 9-to-5 workday for the...
quick-rinse n.— «Just what exactly is a “quick rinse” bankruptcy? Is it really a way to wash all that debt out of GM’s hair? Just take 30 days to untangle GM’s troubles? Coulter said he’d never even heard the term quick rinse until this...
grunt n.— «They’ve got what is called a grunt. It is intended to imitate the grunting sound of a buck deer chasing a doe. Here again the expert on television only has to grunt on his super-caliber deer grunt and bucks magically appear...
When you get to the end of a wonderful book, your first impulse is to tell someone else about it. In this week’s episode, Martha and Grant discuss what they’ve been reading and the delights of great prose. You’ll find information...