A North Carolina woman says when she told her friend she had a TL for her, the friend had no idea what she was talking about. She learns that the term is a shortened form of a secondhand compliment also known as a trade-last or last-go-trade. This...
“Redd up the table!” A California listener says he remembers hearing that all the time when growing up in Iowa, but now that he’s on the West Coast, no one has any idea what he’s talking about. You’ll sometimes see it...
A Southern California woman says she was caught up short when she enthused, “It’s the bomb,” and a 12-year-old had no idea what she was saying. Does our slang need to change as we grow older? Why do we say “the bomb”...
Puzzle Guy Greg Pliska takes equal portions of words and numbers, mixes well, and whips up a quiz called “Initiarithmetic.” The idea is to guess the words based on the initial letters of well-known phrases involving numbers. For example:...
Confused about whether biweekly means “twice a week” or “twice a month”? Martha rants about why the using the words “biweekly” and “bimonthly” at all is a bad idea, period. This is part of a complete...
deliteracy n.— «The very purpose of this series is to combat what I call the ‘deliteracy’ of current and common culture, i.e.- the active dumbing down of art and discourse. Nowadays, many magazines that used to interview people of...
