A.J. Jacobs’ book The Puzzler: One Man’s Quest to Solve the Most Baffling Puzzles Ever, from Crosswords to Jigsaws to the Meaning of Life (Amazon|Bookshop) includes this brain teaser translated from Swahili: I am a house without a door. This is part...
A riddle from an old folklore collection, traced to Kirksville, Missouri, around the turn of the 20th century: “Within a fountain crystal clear / A golden apple doth appear / No doors or locks to this stronghold / Yet thieves break in and steal the...
What a difference pronunciation makes! The United States has a Department of Defense, and an individual might take classes in self-defense. So why do football and basketball coaches say they’re proud of their . . . “DEE-fence?”...
Cobwebs are spiderwebs, especially the dusty, abandoned kind that need sweeping away. Middle English coppe or cop meant “spider” or “round thing,” and cob survives mostly in this compound. A related old word, attercop, combines a word for “poison”...
When you were a child and wanted to lay claim to something, what did you say? Did you call “dibs”? Or “hosey” it? A caller is curious about another verb used in such situations: “finnie.” Grant explains this...
fobbit n. a soldier or other person stationed at a secure forward operating base; (hence) a person who is reluctant or afraid to leave a military base. Etymological Note: forward operating base + hobbit (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
