Cassandra, who lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, wonders about the rules for how to punctuate titles such as Professor and Doctor. Growing up in South Africa, she was taught that, in contrast to practice in the United States, the titles Dr, Mr, and...
You pick up what you think a glass of water and take a sip, but it turns out to be Sprite. What’s the word for that sensation when you’re expecting one thing and taste something else? Also, slang from college campuses, like ratchet and...
The initialism LLAS, meaning “love you like a sister,” isn’t a texting phenomenon—it goes back 30 or 40 years to when girls would write each other letters. This is part of a complete episode.
Hellooooo, nurse! We have two recent brand-new episodes to share, plus some language news, along with a bit about what’s going on with us. First, on the show this past weekend we talked about eponyms, jo-jo potatoes, dog breed mashups, the...
drab adj. wearing men’s clothing; dressed as a boy. Also n. Editorial Note: This term can apply to women, but it applies especially to cross-dressing or transvestite men who see traditional male clothing as drab, ‘charmless; boring.’ The common...
KKN n. corruption, collusion, and nepotism. Etymological Note: Initialism of the Bahasa Indonesia words korupsi, kolusi and nepotisme, which are probably derived from English. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
