When a musician is woodshedding a passage of music, they’re trying to master that part by repeatedly practicing it in private, as if having retreated to do so in a woodshed, away from others who might be bothered by it. This is part of a...
What kind of book do people ask for most often in prison? Romance novels? No. The Bible? No. The most requested books by far are … dictionaries! A number of volunteer organizations gather and distribute used dictionaries to help inmates with...
Amid court-ordered busing in the 1970s, a middle-school teacher tried to distract her nervous students on the first day of class with this strange assignment: find a monarch caterpillar. The result? A memorable lesson in the miracle of metamorphosis...
Have you ever googled your own name and found someone else who goes by the very same moniker? There’s a word for that: googleganger. Plus, the language of hobbyists and enthusiasts: If you’re a beekeeper, perhaps you call yourself a...
In our earlier conversation about the term clam, which musicians use to refer to a “missed note” or “musical mistake,” Martha misspoke and said a similar term was used in rowing and sculling. Actually, as many listeners...
If you catch your blue jeans on a nail, you may find yourself with a winklehawk. This term, adapted into English from Dutch, means “an L-shaped tear in a piece of fabric.” And: What’s your relationship with the books on your...