When someone is perseverating or worrying too much, some Spanish speakers will suggest they stop obsessing with the phrase no te comas el coco. Literally, it means “don’t eat the coconut,” the word coco in Spanish being slang for “head.” This is...
What do you call that moment when you get back in the car and before you drive off, you check back in with your phone to see what you missed in the world of email, texting and cyber communication? How about le petit voyage? This is part of a...
“Do the needful” is a phrase commonly heard from people in India working in tech support. Though it’s fallen out of fashion in British dialects, it’s still common in India to mean “do what you must.” This is part...
Some call it quitting a book, while others call it post-publication editing. You know, in place of neglected pre-publication editing. John in San Diego, California, who suggested that term, said he believes many a book should have been an essay...
PrEP n.— «Like Adam, many gay men around the country are opting to forgo the standard defense against HIV—a condom—in favor of a highly controversial and thus far unproven method of protection known as pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP...
Good stuff, Maynard!, remembered by Matt in Waukesha, Wisconsin as his grandfather’s praise after supper, was popularized by a long-running series of Malt-O-Meal commercials. In the ads, a father urged his son to eat the hot cereal with that line...

