Quiz Guy John Chaneski’s latest side gig is writing anthems for nations that exist only in his imagi-Nation. For example, what “nation” might celebrate itself with the following stanza? In mathematics, it’s an arrangement of elements into various...
A Vermont caller has been told that when she was a young child, she had imaginary friends named Hooney and Dedilae. How do children choose names for their imaginary friends? As Marjorie Taylor and Naomi Aguiar show in their book Imaginary Friends...
A Texas caller says her West Virginia-born mother uses the word hornicaboogery to mean “germs” or “the creeping crud.” Among the many such joking names for imaginary illnesses are gollywobbles, collywobbles, carlymarbles, pantod on the rummit, can’t...
A Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, woman says her family has long used the term nun puckeroo to designate a kind of vague, non-serious malaise. Neither Martha nor Grant knows that exact one, but the Dictionary of American Regional English gives similar...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski has built a time machine for this word game that requires guessing the imaginary early version of nouns like sawhorse and cauliflower. If he gets caught in the machine, though, anything can happen! This is part of a complete...