Kathy in Beaumont, Pennsylvania, is a college instructor whose son is dating someone who is non-binary. Kathy’s eager to be supportive, but still struggles with using their preferred pronouns in a way that feels second-nature. Using language...
A listener from Richmond, Virginia, remembers an old game called buckeye that consists of metaphorically pulling someone’s leg, then calling Buckeye! and tugging one’s own lower eyelid. Martha suggests that it may be related to a 19th...
I kill you later n.— «Using derivatives contracts known as accumulators, the company wanted to minimize its currency exposure resulting from a A$1.6 billion (US$1.07 billion) investment in an iron ore mine in Australia. Three months...
burn v.— «Sometimes he would come back with the sad news that the pictures had got “burnt”— a term for a number of technical hitches, ranging from over-exposure and under-exposure to even out-of-focus shots.» —“The long road...
market for lemons n.— Note: Coined by George Akerlof, who won a Nobel Prize in Economics for the paper he wrote that popularized the term. «Indeed, it would seem that a “market for lemons” is rapidly developing in credit...
fish fog n.— «Medical researchers are just beginning to explore such mercury exposure in adults, which can leave some people struggling through life in a disorienting “fish fog.”» —“Power plants are focus of drive to cut...