Looking for a word that denotes being really excited for someone, but also a little sad? One option is bittersweet, but if you’d like a term that’s not quite so overused, yayboo is taking hold online. The Modern Greek word charmolype...
Sean, a public affairs officer at Camp Pendleton, California, asks about gyrene, an old slang term for a Marine. The word appears in print as early as the 1890s. Although a doubtful popular theory derives it from GI plus marine, the Historical...
You’ve been on the receiving end of backhanded phrases, and admit it, you’ve used them, too. A discussion on Ask MetaFilter prompts Grant and Martha to talk about the ways people use sugar-coated snark. By the way, if you want a fancy...
Are fairy tales too scary for children? A survey of parents in Britain found that more than half wouldn’t read them to their children before age five. Martha and Grant discuss the grisly imagery in fairy tales, and whether they’re too...
Barack Obama wants to put people to work building roads and bridges. But how about a federal jobs program for out-of-work writers? Also: why do we call it a flight of wine? How did the haircut called a mullet get its name?
Kent in Dallas grew up calling the groove between the nose and upper lip a berber, a childhood coinage that even a makeup-counter consultant briefly adopted. The standard anatomical word is philtrum, also called the infranasal depression. It comes...