A Havertown, Pennsylvania, listener wonders why her mother used to answer queries about how she was doing with phrase that sounded like either fair to midland or fair to middling. Middling has long meant “just OK” or “right in the middle,” and the...
What’s the difference between addicting and addictive? Not much, although addictive is the older term. Grant suggests that addicting is more about a quality of the person being affected, whereas if something’s addictive, that’s an inherent property...
fannings n.pl.— Note: Likely related to the sense of “fan” which means “to winnow; to separate chaff from wheat,” derived from the noun for the device used in such a technique. «After the tea leaves are taken off the drying racks, the tiny broken...
lysdexia n.— «Like my “lysdexia” only a “reasonable accommodation” is possible never victory, never recovery. The dyslexia was reasonably accommodated in some serendipitous ways beginning at the age of four in 1951 when my father who had been...
overcranking n.— «There is a…nifty 120 frames-a-second option that allows half-speed playback for really excellent quality slow-mo—what’s called overcranking in the biz.» —“Dork talk” by Stephen Fry Guardian (United Kingdom) Nov. 3, 2007. (source:...
oops paint n. house paint sold at a discount because it is deemed of low quality or unsatisfactory color, has been returned by a previous customer, or was specially mixed but never sold. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
