Alright, alright, alright! How do some catchphrases become part of the larger vernacular—to the point where people don’t always know the original reference? And the island of Ocracoke off the coast of North Carolina has a distinctive dialect all its...
When there’s no evening meal planned at home, what do you call that scramble to cobble together your own dinner? Some people apply acronyms like YOYO — “you’re on your own” — or CORN, for “Clean Out your Refrigerator...
Following up on our conversation about indefinite hyperbolic numerals like forty-eleven and zillion, we discuss humpty-twelve. Another slang term used to denote a large quantity is telephone numbers, which can be applied to “an excessive...
We’re so jaded by the clickbait titles directing us to sites like Upworthy that the site Downworthy is doing something about it. And imagine what it’d be like if serious literature got the same treatment. This is part of a complete...
hypar n.— «Saturday, June 9, Cleveland offered members of ITSA an opportunity to examine a model of a hyperbolic paraboloid, which is sometimes called a hypar, by coming to Spring Valley to see some of the alternative building methods in...
ultra lounge n.— «It was happy hour at a nearby “ultra lounge,” whether or not patrons knew what was meant by “ultra.”…“Ultra” is something of a hyperbolic reference to the less-than-ultra-surprising mix of offerings: cocktails...