A bolt-hole is a place where you can escape to avoid people you don’t want to run into. This term for “a type of refuge” is used mainly in Britain, and refers to a place an animal might flee to if disturbed. This is part of a...
We often hear that English is going to hell in a handbasket. Actually, though, linguistic handwringing about sinking standards and sloppy speech has been going on for centuries – at least as far back as the 1300’s! And: language also...
If you’ve ever had the experience of casting a dream film or TV episode in your head—say, putting Benedict Cumberbatch and Johnny Lee Miller, both of whom play Sherlock Holmes on TV, in the same show together—that imaginary scenario comes from...
Infracaninophile means a lover or helper of the underdog, a word Kate in Evansville, Indiana, remembered from graduate school in social work. Its parts are nicely transparent: infra-, under, canino, dog, and -phile, lover. As far as anyone can tell...
pixel-hunting n.— «he body is of course the first thing to attract attention, and it must be examined thoroughly (and here enters pixel-hunting): the main wounds, the bruises revealing that the victim’s jewellery has been taken, a...