Youngsters want to know: What’s the difference between barely and nearly, and what’s so clean about a whistle, anyway? Plus, adults recount some misunderstandings from when they were knee-high to a grasshopper. Kids do come up with some...
Why is the word pound abbreviated lb.? A listener from Tijuana, Mexico, learns that the answer relates to his native Spanish as well as the Latin term for “weighing.” This is part of a complete episode.
Whether it’s bytes of data or intergalactic distances, humans are accumulating ever more massive amounts of data. But how do we use language to describe such mind-bogglingly huge numbers? There’s mega, as in mega-millions, and giga, as...
oil pulling n.— «The procedure called “oil pulling” may help for edema. It consists of rinsing the mouth with one tablespoon of natural oil for 15-20 minutes and then spitting the oil out. It is done in the morning before...
computon n.—Gloss: in information technology, a measure of power or capacity of devices or systems such as storage, networks, or computer processors. Note: The more common spelling is “computron.” «A computon is a measurement...
groundtruthing n.— Note: OED defines this as “the action or process of establishing ground truth,” and defines “ground truth” as “information obtained by direct measurement at ground level, rather than by...