What do you call that room in your house where the family gathers — the family room? The den? The TV room? Names for that living space go in and out of fashion. In the 1930s, you might have called it the sitting room, parlor, living room, setting...
A caller with a 25-year-old parrot wonders: How much language do birds really understand? Plus, Knock-knock. Who’s there? Boo. Well… you can guess the rest. But there was a time when these goofy jokes were a brand-new craze sweeping the nation...
Before knock-knock jokes swept the country in 1936, another silly parlor game called handies was all the rage. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Handies” I was talking at the beginning about these newspaper articles that were...
parlor n.— «Lobsters like the shelter of rocks and prefer cold water to warm. They move around a lot and find their food by smell—that’s what the antennas are for—and not by sight. But the whole notion of trapping them may be a misconception. There...
passablanc adj.—Gloss: in New Orleans, being of mixed race but presenting oneself as a white person. «Ms. Broyard learned the Creole word for the way her father had lived: passablanc. To this day virtually all Creoles are related to or at least...
meat tag n.— «A few blocks down Lejeune Boulevard, Josef McDonald’s tattoo parlor had one customer. The business slowdown followed a flurry earlier in the week from departing Marines wanting “meat tags”—tattoos of their names, social security...