We have collective nouns for animals, like “a gaggle of geese,” “a pride of lions,” and “an exaltation of larks.” So why not collective nouns for plants? How about a “greasing of palms,” or a...
Training is usually a mass noun: you get training, not one training and three trainings. Ed, writing from the Phoenix School of Law, asks about the count-noun use in sentences such as “I had three trainings yesterday.” Some speakers are fine with...
A weep of willows, an embarrassment of weeds, and a pride of dandelions are listener-made collective terms for plants, following a recent conversation about the form. The fun depends on sound and sense: a churn of buttercups, a universe of cosmos, a...
Grant quizzes Martha about the meaning of several rhyming verb and noun phrases: cuff and stuff, the cherries and blueberries, chew and screw, eat it and beat it, and flap and zap. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Rhyming...
A group of student architects who want their acronym to be CASA have a question. Is it more grammatical to call it the Chicano Architecture Student Association or Chicano Architectural Student Association? This is part of a complete episode...
keming
n.— «keming. noun. The result of improper kerning.» —“Idea: A new typography term” by David Friedman Ironic Sans Feb. 19, 2008. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)