If you want to be a better writer, try skipping today’s bestsellers, and read one from the 1930’s instead. Or read something besides fiction in order to find your own metaphors and perspective. Plus, just because a city’s name...
Alex from Los Angeles, California, remembers his Spanish-speaking grandmother using filibustero to mean “ruffian.” The term shares an origin with English filibuster: both trace back to Dutch vrijbuiter, meaning “freebooter,” a pirate who seizes...
The poetic Spanish phrase “nadie te quita lo bailado” expresses the idea that once you’ve made a memory, you’ll always have it, no matter what. Literally, it translates as “no one can take away what you’ve danced...
It’s hard enough to get a new word into the dictionary. But what happens when lawmakers get involved? New Jersey legislators passed a resolution as part of an anti-bullying campaign urging dictionary companies to adopt the word upstander. It...
To “summer and winter” about a matter is an old expression that means “to carry on at great length” about it. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “To Summer and Winter” I came across this old Scots...
If you don’t have anything nice to say, say it like Shakespeare: Thou unhandsome smush-mouthed mush-rump! Thou obscene rug-headed hornbeast! The Shakespeare Insult Generator helps you craft creative zingers by mixing and matching the...