Tunket is a euphemism for “hell,” as in, “Where in tunket did I put my car keys?” No one knows its origin or where your keys are. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Tunket” Here’s another word that was new to me, grant. Tunket, t-u-n...
Have you ever been faced with a defugalty? This ironic misspelling and mispronunciation of difficulty popped up in a Dashiell Hammett novel, They Glass Key, in 1931. It’s often said with a tongue in the cheek, but, as in the case of the Hammett...
Your mother gave you life, and you gave her … a boondoggle. Or is it a lanyard? Maybe a gimp? Grant assures a listener there are several terms for that long key fob you made at summer camp out of plastic yarn. Boondoggle seems to have originated...
A recent article in The New Yorker magazine about the late writer David Foster Wallace has Martha musing about Wallace’s stem-winding sentences, and the word stem-winder.
air breather n.— «Hundreds of American support personnel members on the ground in Colombia complemented these elite forces, in addition to a frenzied intelligence-gathering operation located in the United States Embassy here, drawing on intercepts...
weeping tile n.— «Key components to this portion of the project, besides the 6 x 6 lumber, are a perforated four-inch drain pipe (also referred to as weeping tile), course gravel, 10-inch galvanized spikes, a 1/4 inch ship auger and a five-pound...
