Cleave, dust, and screen are all words that can mean the opposite of themselves. You can cleave to a belief, meaning to “adhere closely,” but you can also separate things by cleaving them. Words that mean the opposite of themselves go by many...
Ever notice when people start to answer to a question with the words, “Yeah, no–“? Linguists have been studying this seemingly contradictory phrase for years. It may look like oxymoron, but it’s not. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of...
Say you have a particularly rambunctious child. Okay, a little hellion. Is it proper to describe the little devil as a holy terror? Or might it be more correct and more logical to call him an unholy terror? A Los Angeles caller thinks it’s the...
A California caller is puzzled as to why the prefix un- seems to function in two entirely different ways in the terms undone and unmarried. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Conflicting Meanings of Prefix “Un”” Hello, you have A Way...
dipsticking n.—Gloss: taking random samples or randomly choosing people to question. «One recent morning, Ms. Cascio asked several students in succession to explain the logic of their answer to the same question—and, “Uh, yeah, I agree with Yasamin...
hitling n.— «Attaching labels such as “racist” or even “Fascist” to anyone criticizing massive immigration or Multiculturalism has become so common that Norwegian anti-Islamists have coined a new word for it: “Hitling,” which could be roughly...