A writer at an ad agency in Rochester, New York, has a dispute with his chief copy writer: If you’re taking off Thursday and Friday, is your last day of work that week a Wednesday Friday? Or is it a Friday Wednesday? This is part of a complete...
The manager of a cider mill in Rochester, Minnesota, is curious about the name of the variety of apple known as Northern Spy. The origins of its name are murky, but it was likely popularized by the 1830 novel Northern Spy, about a wily abolitionist...
Katie in Boston, who grew up near Buffalo, knew the plastic-string camp craft as boondoggle, while friends in Boston called the material or activity gimp and others called it lanyard. Boondoggle appears to have arisen in scouting near Rochester, New...
A sign-language interpreter found herself translating the word doldrums. She wonders if it has to do the area of the ocean known by that name. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Doldrums” Hello, you have A Way with Words...
cleanout n.— «Salvation comes in the form of large cleansing cool winds that sweep in from the northwest. But as luck would have it, Rochester is the last to benefit from Mother Nature’s air freshener. After pushing through Detroit Lakes...
pishing v.— «Birders are a passionate flock. They will travel anywhere to get a glimpse of a rare bird. They will watch TV and look for birds, laughing at Hollywood if they hear a common loon in the desert. They think and even talk like...