“If you come to a fork in the road… take it!” Baseball legend Yogi Berra was famous for such head-scratching observations. What most people don’t realize, though, is that the former Yankees star often wasn’t the first...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski has built a time machine for this word game that requires guessing the imaginary early version of nouns like sawhorse and cauliflower. If he gets caught in the machine, though, anything can happen! This is part of a complete...
First names like “Patience,” “Hope,” and “Charity” are inspired by worthy qualities. But how about “Be-courteous” or “Hate-evil”? The Puritans sometimes gave children such names hoping that...
Hi, ho! Lots of “Behind The Scenes” news from “A Way with Words” this week, but first: In this week’s episode, we discuss “burrito babies” and other college slang. Also, “overegging the pudding,”...
macaroon technique n.— «He used PowerPoint to impart what he calls the “macaroon technique,” referring to the sandwich-like French macaron pastry. This can be applied to most any product (including, presumably, a Xerox machine) and goes...
ghost shift n.— «Very low serial numbers, like very low MAC ID addresses, are a hallmark of the “ghost shift,” i.e. the shift that happens very late at night when a rogue worker enters the factory and runs the production machine off...