In a few parts of the country, such as eastern Wisconsin, the more common term for “water fountain” is bubbler. A man who heard the term frequently in Rhode Island wonders: How did bubbler make it all the way over to Rhode Island, but...
Jamrocks n.— «Jamrocks (the word is Jamaican patois slang for the island country) is a funky little place.» —“It’s ’Marley and me’ at Jamrocks Grill” by Mary K. Means Bradenton...
brass-plate bank n.— «He was first investigated 20 years ago when he became a subject of a joint Scotland Yard-FBI investigation into so-called “brass-plate” banks on the Caribbean island of Montserrat. The investigation was set up after...
black starting n.— «The loss of four major transmission lines from Hawaiian Electric’s Kahe power plant last night triggered an island-wide blackout.…HECO was woking last night to restart its generators at Kahe and Waiau, a process...
The British publishers of the Collins dictionary have announced 24 words on their endangered species list. They’re words like “vilipend,” which means “to treat with contempt,” and “nitid,” that’s n-i-t...
Word nerd Ammon Shea quit his job as a furniture mover in New York City to spend an entire year reading the entire Oxford English Dictionary. The result, in addition to eyestrain, headaches, and skeptics’ puzzlement, was Shea’s new book...