John Chaneski’s latest puzzle is “The Yo-Yo Quiz,” and it’s not about famous cellists or first person pronouns in Spanish. The object is to guess the missing word that can be paired with either “up” or...
A electronic teenager repellent? An alarm clock that runs away from you to make you’ll wake up? Yep, it’s the Ig Nobel Prizes, those awards for academic research that first makes you laugh and then makes you think. Martha and Grant honor...
ecosavant n.— «Then there’s Al Gore. During the 2000 election, the press seized on the conceit that Gore was too eager to please, too deferential, too indecisive. Today Gore is still the proto beta male—the on-again-off-again beard, the...
giggle-box n.— «I can relate to this, as I was affectionately called “giggle-box” throughout my school years. It never took much to make me laugh; and, before too long everyone else in the class chimed in.» —“Jo Ellen...
laugh like a drain v. phr.— «My dad was a huge Peter Sellers fan. If you’re in for two minutes, you’re in for two hours at my house. And it was always a nice truce. Because my dad was from Liverpool—he didn’t have a bad temper, but he was...
duder n.— «While your description of a “striped-shirt guy” is quite accurate, I would have to argue that a “duder” ranks slightly differently, and lower on the heirarchical scale of cookie-cutter males, if you...