A Little Rock, Arkansas, caller has been going out with a Chinese woman. Her English is pretty good, but he wonders about the most polite way to correct a minor grammar mistake without ruining a new relationship. This is part of a complete episode...
Quiz Guy Greg Pliska presents a puzzle about the Oxcar awards, given to fictitious films, the names of which differ by just one letter from the names of the real 2010 Best Picture Oscar nominees. Here’s one such plot: “George Clooney...
How can the word friend possibly describe both the people you went to school with and the people to whom you are connected through Facebook and MySpace? Are friends on the social sites really friends? Is there a better word to describe someone who...
Chimerica n.—Gloss: The symbiotic Chinese-American financial relationship, in which there is a great trade imbalance as Americans save little and buy lots, and there is a great investment in American Treasury bills and the dollar by the...
bowl of red
n.— «The fact that a Texas “bowl of red,” as chili is commonly called, has no original relationship with past didn’t matter.» —by Mark Busby The Southwest , 2004. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
DADT n.— «One factor that makes her case interesting is that Witt never openly violated the tangled “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, or “DADT” as it is known. She was outed when an anonymous tipster told Air Force...

