The anatomy of effective prose, and the poetry of anatomy. Ever wonder what it’d be like to audit a class taught by a famous writer? A graduate student’s essay offers a taste of a semester studying with author Annie Dillard. Also, what...
Travis in Austin, Texas, has a dispute with friends: is the popular sorting game called paper, scissors, rock, as he believes? Or is it rock, paper, scissors? In the United States, the latter is the more common variant, although people have...
Have you ever offered to foster a dog or cat, but wound up adopting instead? There’s an alliterative term for that. And when you’re on the job, do niceties like “Yes, ma’am” and “No, sir” make you sound too...
What do you call the cardboard roll inside a roll of toilet paper? Many families have their own name for it, including der der and oh-ah, oh-ah. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Der Der, Oh-Ah” You’re...
If someone spilled a box of paper clips, for example, would you say that they wasted the paper clips, even though the clips could be picked up and re-used? Although most people wouldn’t, this sense of waste meaning “to spill” is...
Right off the bat, it’s easy to think of several everyday expressions that derive from America’s pastime–including “right off the bat.” The Dickson Baseball Dictionary catalogues not only those contributions but also...