Book recommendations and the art of apology. Martha and Grant share some good reads, including an opinionated romp through English grammar, a Spanish-language adventure novel, an account of 19th-century dictionary wars, and a gorgeously illustrated...
Youngsters want to know: What’s the difference between barely and nearly, and what’s so clean about a whistle, anyway? Plus, adults recount some misunderstandings from when they were knee-high to a grasshopper. Kids do come up with some...
Fourteen-year-old Harry from Charlotte, Vermont, asks why we say something is clean as a whistle. Clean as a whistle refers not to a physical whistle, but to the purity of the sibilant sound. This is part of a complete episode.
Fourteen-year-old Harry from Charlotte, Vermont, asks why we say something is clean as a whistle. The phrase refers not to a physical whistle, but to the purity of the sibilant sound. This is part of a complete episode.
purity siege n.— «Next time you see that group of fundamentalist Christians proselytizing outside the gay bars on the Cedar Springs strip, be sure to ask them about James Stabile.…The segment focused on a group affiliated with...
nines n.— «Electromet silicon of less than three-nines purity, the purest available at the time, provided at a cost of $16 per pound.» —by American Society for Metals Ultra-High-Purity Metals , 1962. (source: Double-Tongued...