When you had sleepovers as a child, what did you call the makeshift beds you made on the floor? In some places, you call those bedclothes and blankets a pallet. This word comes from an old term for “straw.” And: What’s the story...
The Spanish word for straw is paja. In Italian, it’s paglia, which also gives us the name of the opera Il Pagliacci, the Italian word for clowns. In the past, clown costumes were made of the same fabric used to cover straw mattresses. This is...
What do you call that last small irritation, burden, or annoyance that finally makes a situation untenable? Is it the last straw or the last draw? Hint: it has nothing to do with a shootout at the OK corral. This is part of a complete episode...
polebrity n.— «Pretty soon, we will all probably start to complain that Obama is a man of straw, a media creation, a triumph of style over substance; more a celebrity than a politician—a “polebrity” to use the latest ugly...
straw dog n.— «Bishops have always been free to theological form their own diocese. If this were not the case how was Mr. Schofield able to keep from ordaining women all those twenty years? This ladies and gentlemen, is what I believe is...
heli-mulching n.— «Rice straw dropped from a heavy-lift helicopter rained down like snow Monday on fire-blackened forest land north of Oroville in an effort to control erosion. The process, known as “heli-mulching,” is set to continue...