Hi! In the latest episode of “A Way with Words,” it’s the day jobs of famous writers. We also discuss Eskimo kisses, the Puerto Rican treat called a “limber,” how “fail” became a noun, “I’m efforting that,” the term “chester drawers,” and where you...
A native Japanese speaker is mystified by the expression “happy as a clam.” In Japanese, she says, if you had a good night’s sleep you might say you “slept like a clam” or “slept like mud.” So why do English speakers think clams are content? This is...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski has a fill-in-the-blank limerick puzzle, including: “There was once a coed named Clapper / In psychology class quite a napper. / But her Freudian dreams / Were so classic it seems / That now she’s a __________________.” This...
share-house n.— «Many weekenders stay in what is known as a “share-house”, sprawling mansions shared by as many as 30 twenty-to-thirty-somethings, who often sleep six to a room in a scenario that calls to mind the TV shows Big Brother and MTV’s The...
walling n.— «NBC Nightly News noted that the memos provide “the fullest description yet of the techniques used by the CIA on roughly 30 detainees,” including “slapping, sleep deprivation, stress positions, nudity, something called...
sleep hangover n.— «Those medications can induce next-day grogginess—what some patients call “sleep hangovers.”» —“10 Ways to Get Better Sleep (and Maybe Cure Your Insomnia)” by Lindsay Lyon US News & World Report Mar. 3, 2009. (source: Double...
