Stories From The Onion In this week’s episode, Martha and Grant discuss not-to-be-believed articles about language from the satirical newspaper The Onion, including one headlined “Underfunded Schools Forced to Cut Past Tense from...
Twittering, tweeting, twirting—it’s rare to see a whole new body of language appear right before your eyes. But that’s what’s happening with Twitter. We discuss the snappy new shorthand of the twitterati. Also, why do people feel...
A man who owns a parrot says that when people see his bird, they invariably ask the question “Polly wanna cracker?” He wonders about the origin of that psittacine phrase, meaning parrot-like. One of the earliest uses of the phrase so far...
In this week’s episode, Martha and Grant discuss not-to-be-believed articles about language from the satirical newspaper The Onion, including one headlined “Underfunded Schools Forced to Cut Past Tense from Language Programs.” By...
fratire n.— «With titles like “Real Ultimate Power,” a satirical ode to the masculine prowess of ninjas; “The Modern Drunkard,” a paean to getting hammered; and “The Game,” a manual for manipulating and...
dirka dirka interj. a mimicry of spoken Arabic; also attributive, connoting things Muslim, Arabic, or Middle Eastern, or those related to terrorists or terrorism. Editorial Note: This expression is often, but not always, derogatory. Etymological...