Need a way to select someone from a group to be a recipient of something? Horsengoggle it! Kids have been horsengoggling for a long time, and sometimes children start out this counting game in German, with Einz, Zwei, Drei, Horsengoggle! No one...
John in Brattleboro, Vermont, is pondering words and phrases that change their meaning when they move from one language to another. For example, in Germany the English phrase public viewing doesn’t have to do with a wake, but a live sporting...
Jerry in San Diego, a food server, heard a coworker vent in the kitchen with sacapuntas, Spanish for pencil sharpener. The word works as mock profanity because it sounds forceful without being obscene, and in parts of Mexico, including Baja and...
What IS the longest word in the English language? “Antidisestablishmentarianism”? “Floccinaucinihilipilification”? Or “pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis,” maybe? Martha and Grant discuss such...
BONCOB n.— «As those pseudo-silk purses now unravel, a new acronym has joined the financial argot: BONCOB, pronounced Bon-cob, according to debt traders. Translation (have the children leave the room now): “Bugger off, no chance of...
scofticism n.— «Our side’s comebacks have lacked its punch and pizzazz. Neither “fundamentalist materialism” nor “pseudo-skepticism” nor “pathological skepticism” nor sneer-quoted “skepticism” can match...