Choosing language that helps resolve interpersonal conflict. Sometimes a question is really just a veiled form of criticism and understanding the difference between “ask culture” and “guess culture” can help you know how to...
Is it time to replace the expression “the mentally ill”? Some argue the term unfairly stigmatizes a broad range of people. Also, the winter sport of… skitching, which involves snowy roads, leather shoes — and car bumpers...
O heavy lightness! Serious vanity! Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms! A listener senses something awfully good about oxymorons, from the Greek for “pointedly foolish.” Grant shares this favorite example from Shakespeare’s Romeo...
silver n.— «Even the so-called better prints that pirates affectionately call silver” are not free of bloopers. One young media professional was amused to find Brad Pitt crying in Spanish in what the cover promised to be the English...
monkid n.—Gloss: a monkey that is dressed and cared for as if it were a child. «Ms. Delaney’s primates come from laboratories, roadside zoos and misguided owners. Naturally feisty and easily bored in captivity, monkeys are far from being...
chalcogel n.— «The discovery, reported in the latest issue of Science magazine, has proven to be the ideal cleaner for waters infested with heavy metals like cadmium, lead or mercury. Chalcogel is a rigid material that can be used to...