What’s the best way for someone busy to learn lots of new words quickly for a test like the GRE? Looking up their origins can help. Or, record yourself reading the words and definitions and play them back while you’re doing other chores...
A Huntsville, Alabama, listener says that when someone was being abrasive or mean or defiant, her mother would say she’s got her habits on. This phrase appears in the work of many blues singers, including Lucille Bogan and Bessie Smith, and...
If a colleague repeatedly mispronounces a word, what’s the best way to handle it? Should you correct him? Ignore it? Is it possible to discuss the proper way to say something without being rude or condescending?
snoutcast n.— «You see them everywhere, huddled together in doorways and outside buildings—whatever the weather, giving their lungs their nicotine “snack.” They are Britain’s smoking employees, now dubbed “snoutcasts.” Since a...
cocaine bug n.pl.— «There are many strange things connected with the drug habit and the “cocaine bug” is one of the most singular. The victim imagines there is a bug crawling about just under his skin.» —“Opium, Cocaine...