What do readers of The New Yorker complain about most when they write letters to the editor? Those two dots above vowels in words like cooperate and reelect. The diaeresis, as those marks are known, has remained in use at the magazine ever since the...
What’s so special about the phrase Sit on a pan, Otis? It’s an example of a palindrome — a word or phrase that’s spelled the same backwards as it is forwards. This year’s contest known as the Oscars of the palindrome...
A Hollywood entrance, in spelunker slang, is a cave with a large, dramatic opening like the one at Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. The term appears in Burkhard Bilger’s article in The New Yorker about the world of squeeze freaks, extreme cavers who relish...
Disgruntled means “unhappy,” and gruntled means the opposite, although you almost never hear the latter. Playing with such unpaired words can be irresistible, whether you’re a poet or an essayist for The New Yorker. This is part of...
Online recaps of Mad Men or Breaking Bad can be as much fun as the shows themselves. So why not recap classic literature — like, say, Dante’s Inferno? A literary website is doing just that. And, you’ve heard about the First World and the...
The enviable poker position known as the catbird seat belongs to the last player to bet, who can see everyone else act first. Mike, a poker player in Alabama, wants to know how the phrase got there. Baseball broadcaster Red Barber said he first...
