Malamute, kayak, and parka are just some of the words that have found their way into English from the language of indigenous people in northern climes. • In the 1970s, some scientists argued that two quarks should be called truth and beauty. • The...
Pepper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, wonders why something valuable to someone is called the apple of their eye. The expression apple of one’s eye dates back to the ninth century. It comes from misunderstanding the pupil of the eye as a sphere and...
party ball n. a five-gallon container of beer, one-third the size of a keg (in the U.S.). Editorial Note: According to numerous articles in the Washington Post, Party Ball was also the now outdated product name for “a lightweight plastic...
blogject n.— «“Blogject” is a neologism that’s meant to focus attention on the participation of “objects” and “things” in the sphere of networked social discourse variously called the blogosphere, or social web. The Blogject is a kind of...
stove pipe v.— «Each of these systems is supplied by different manufacturers with particular and typically focused disciplines. The various systems get “stove piped” and opportunities resolved within their discipline and...
dementia americana n.— «When Thaw’s attorney made the case that his client had been acting out of a condition he termed dementia Americana—a legitimate rage triggered by the desecration of a man’s home—a powerful nexus of concerns with...