In the 15th century, the word respair meant “to have hope again.” Although this word fell out of use, it’s among dozens collected in a new book of soothing vocabulary for troubled times. Plus, baseball slang: If a batter...
Camden from Juneau, Alaska, uses the term gaffle to mean “snag,” as in to gaffle a Coke from the fridge. In his 1872 work A Dictionary of Etymology (Bookshop|Amazon), philologist Hensleigh Wedgwood notes that in a variety of languages...
The slang coming out of Victorian mouths was more colorful than you might think. A 1909 collection of contemporary slang records clever terms for everything from a bald head to the act of sidling through a crowd. Plus, how to remember the difference...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski wasn’t savvy enough way back when to snag an email address like john@aol.com, but he was clever enough to come up with a game about apt email addresses that serve as a pun on the word at. For example, a prescient lawyer...
Greetings, oh wordy ones! We're on vacation, so this past weekend's broadcast was a repeat--uh, "encore presentation"--that originally aired December 2nd and 3rd. It's the one in which we geek-out over...
dually n.— «The ability to see over other traffic is a big plus, and the width of the cab assures the driver doesn’t snag the rear tires or even the bodywork in a close maneuver—commonly a problem with big dually pickups...