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?” Linguists have a...
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 word’s meaning and origin. Transcript of...
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)
