Rob and Andrea in Wilmington, Delaware, ask about a word they associate with southern West Virginia. It’s a word for something you “put on” bad behavior to shut it down, and it sounds like it’d be spelled something like quieenus. Their word is...
You dream of writing the great American novel, but to make ends meet, you spend your days writing boring corporate reports. There’s a difference between writing for love and writing for a living — or is there? Does a heyday have anything to do with...
When you put the kibosh, or kybosh, on something, you’re putting a speedy end to it. This term, usually pronounced KYE-bosh, first showed up in print when Charles Dickens used it in 1836, writing under the pseudonym Boz. In that piece, it was spoken...