I’m as old as my tongue and a little bit older than my teeth goes back to the 18th century. The quip appears in Jonathan Swift’s Polite Conversation, published around 1738, and in the 1811 slang dictionary Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Gail...
Mark Twain famously said that he’d never write “metropolis” for 7 cents when he could write “city” for the same fee, and it stands as good advice for writers looking to make economical word choices. This is part of a...
Are your nightstand books all over the place? Why not stack ’em into a bookmash? A bookmash is a kind of found poetry formed from book titles! And we all know that honesty is the best policy. But does that mean you should correct the grammar of your...
Some of us can’t go anywhere without a book or something to read. And one fast food joint hears you: Chipotle is now printing the work of famous writers on their paper cups. Speaking of fast food, saying that someone is two plums short of a...
Remember the classic films Dogumentary and $3000? Those were their working titles, before they became Best In Show and Pretty Woman. We look at how movie titles evolve and change. Also, is Spanglish a real language? And balaclavas, teaching your...
How did the word gay go from meaning lighthearted to homosexual? Also, why are elementary schools sometimes called grammar schools? Plus, imeldific, gone pecan, random Scrabble words, and the difference between borrow and lend. And the etiquette of...