Fernando in San Antonio, Texas, is curious about the use of the term holiday to mean a space on a wall that’s been covered unevenly and requires repainting. This usage goes back to the shipbuilding industry of the 1700s, when workers tarring...
Wrapping up 2016 with words from the past year and some newsy limericks. Bigly and Brexit were on lots of lips this year, as well as an increasingly popular Danish word that means “cozy.” Also, Quiz Guy John Chaneski sums up the year in...
Holiday is an old word for a missed spot while painting or wiping a surface. Kelly from Dallas, Texas, learned it from her father, a 28-year Navy veteran, who would point to a skipped patch on the wall and say, “You’ve got a holiday up there.” The...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski has an artful quiz about, well, art. For example, remove two letters from the end of this painting’s title, and now the couple in it has been replaced by a pale young man outside a farmhouse sporting a black T-shirt...
A listener in Palmer, Massachusetts, wants a term for when something, such as a piece of art, evokes fondness by combining both old and new things, such as a Monet painting reimagined by a digital artist. How about a combination of the Italian words...
A new book called Ciao, Carpaccio!: An Infatuation, by veteran travel writer Jan Morris, celebrates the Venetian artist Carpaccio, who often used swaths of bright red in his paintings. His color choice is said to be the inspiration for beef or tuna...