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...
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...