A caller wonders if she’s being hypersensitive about the way her boss addresses her in emails. Can the use of an employee’s first name ever reflect a power differential? And: a community choir director wants a term for “the act of...
A listener in Cairns, Queensland, Australia shared this brain teaser: 11 was 1 racehorse/ 22 was 1 2 / 1111 race / 22112. It may look mystifying, but when you sound it out correctly, it makes perfect sense. The Ha Ha Bonk Book (Bookshop|Amazon) is...
A kindergartener misunderstands the name of an event at his school, insisting to his mother that he attended a pepper alley, not a pep rally. Let’s hope that’s the case, because pepper alley is actually 19th-century boxing slang for...
A wet dress rehearsal is a run-through of all the processes required before a rocket launch, up until, but not including, liftoff. What makes this simulation wet is that the rocket’s fuel tanks are filled, then drained once the countdown clock...
shack farming n.— «Municipalities would be able to demolish the shack and thus continue our national effort to eradicate slums. The act also ends what is commonly called “shack farming,” which is when people invade land and...
mumblecore n.— «I think that there are a bunch of us coming up now who have many of the same influences, and the same anti-influences, i.e. some of the crummier aspects of the indie scene that we’d all like to bury. My new film...