Fireflies have lots of different names in English, including lightning bug, lighter fly, glowworm, and third-shift mosquito. These insects have similarly poetic names in other languages. In Brazil, it’s a vagalume or wandering light, and the...
A Jamaican English word for firefly is often rendered peenie-wallie, with many spellings, including peeni wally. Its origin is unknown. Valerie Bloom’s poem “Two Seasons” uses the word, and an audio reading preserves the sound of it in context. This...
Who put the piping in the expression “piping hot”? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Piping Hot” You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett...
firefly moment n.— «Guests of the Women’s Resource Center enjoyed Embracing Firefly Moments at the Plantation Golf and Country Club with author/speaker Barbara Braunstein. Barbara kept the attendees in stitches with humorous anecdotes and...
Canadian binding n.— «It was initially a spiral-bound paperback, but when consumers could not easily find it on bookstore shelves, Firefly worked with its printer, Friesen’s, to wrap a spine around the wire-o binding. Now known as...