Blackacre, Whiteacre, and Greenacre are legal placeholder names for imaginary parcels of land, the real-estate cousins of doohickey and whatchamacallit. Lawyers and law students use them in hypotheticals about land transfers, taxes, and other...
A Quebec listener asks: In the phrases it’s a girl, or it’s raining, what exactly is the it here? It’s called the weather it or the dummy it, and it serves a placeholder inserted to make the sentence function grammatically. This is...
A law student wonders about the origin of the word widget. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Etymology of Widget” Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hi, my name’s Arela Wright from Indianapolis, Indiana, and I was...
A caller from Texas wonders what the “D” stands for in D-Day. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “”D” in D-Day” Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hello, this is Mike. I’m calling from Odessa...
silent stinker n.— «“There’s a filing deadline when legislative sponsors can propose new legislation,” said Harper. “In order to get around the filing deadline, they can file a shell bill, which is like a placeholder, that they can fill...
A Hoosier says her friends tease her about the way she says doofitty when she can’t think of the right word for something. Grant and Martha discuss the long list of linguistic placeholders, including whatchamacallit, doodad, deely-bobber...