Brand names, children’s games, and the etiquette of phone conversations. Those clever plastic PEZ dispensers come in all shapes and sizes—but where did the word PEZ come from? The popular candy’s name is the product of wordplay involving...
A customer-service representative from Seattle, Washington, is curious about the phrases people use as a part of leave-taking when they’re finishing a telephone conversation. Linguists who conduct discourse analysis on such conversations say...
peopletician n.—Gloss: A politician who is focused on citizens and not on government. Note: This word has been repeatedly recoined by many people. «We had the best Ulster County legislative representative you could want in Marion...
fishbowl negotiation n.— «When the various groups produced their recommendations, they were turned over to what was known as a “fishbowl negotiation.” Each small group selected a representative to negotiate for it with...
creeping crud n.— «The Republican state representative from Williamson County, interviewed at his Capitol office last week, for 10 days or so had been fighting what some people call the creeping crud, a debilitating mixture of cold, flu...
spiral n.— «After three spirals spanning five months, the main experiment for the Joint Expeditionary Force Experiment 2006 is finally under way here.…According to Scott Sampson, execution director, JEFX consists of three spiral...