What’s the difference between cavalry and calvary? The first of these two refers to the group of soldiers on horseback and is a linguistic relative of such “horsey” words as caballero, the Spanish horse-riding gentleman, and cavalcade, originally a...
What is an earwig? Those skinny brown insects with pinchers coming out their backsides have a reputation in folklore for crawling through people’s ears and laying eggs in their skull. But really, earwigs are just simple insects that take their name...
Twinjury n.— «On May 29th, James Coleman of Bristol smacked his skull on a tree branch while filing updates to the Twitter service (or tweeting) from his Blackberry during a run. His accident spawned a new word: a “Twinjury.”» —“Rethinking rights...
Grant gives a brief review of the new third edition of Paul Dickson’s The Dickson Baseball Dictionary, all 974 pages and 4.5 pounds of it. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Baseball Dictionary” You’re listening to A Way with Words...
talk and die syndrome n.— «Doctors have suggested that Richardson suffered from something called “talk and die” syndrome, in which bleeding that occurs between the skull and brain stem is delayed. Patients seem fine after the trauma and may think...
skulling n.—Gloss: Wiktionary defines this as “the act of aging a young bird by measuring the degree of ossification of its skull.” «The age of the birds can be determined by examining the feathers (color and shape), eye color, soft parts around...
