We’ve all had the experience of saying a word over and over again until it starts to sound like nonsense. Linguists call this semantic satiation, although you might also think of it as Gnarly Foot phenomenon. Stare at your foot long enough...
Hey, look: there are three brand-new episodes to tell you about! Each includes a few rounds of devious word puzzles cooked up by our quiz guy John Chaneski, as well as: Last weekend, “Secret Gibberish”: piggyback gibberish the...
Is it ever okay to end a sentence with a preposition? Oh, is it ever! Martha and Grant do their best to bury this tired old proscription. It’s a baseless rule concocted by 17-century grammarians, and it’s errant nonsense up with which...
We hear the word maverick a lot lately, but where did this term for a stubborn nonconformist come from? Martha tells the story of the Texas politician who inspired the word, and whose grandson apparently coined another familiar English word...
pant-load n. 1 a. nonsense; rubbish; (a crock of) shit. 1 b. a despicable person; a fool. 2. a large amount. Etymological Note: From a literal meaning of pant-load as “turds; the product of a bowel movement,” especially when copious...
tok cork v. to chat or talk idly. Also talk cork. Etymological Note: Perhaps from English talk (poppy)cock, v., ‘to talk nonsense.’ (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)