Dude, how’d we ever start using the word dude? The Big Grantbowski traces the word’s origin—it’s over 125 years old. Here’s a poem about dandy dudes from 1883, the year the word zoomed into common use. Ben Zimmer at Visual Thesaurus also has a very...
Hey, everybody! This past weekend's show was our tribute to National Grammar Day, which is Tuesday, March 4th. Among other things, we talked about "booby trap," the food dish "turkey Manhattan," "lock, stock, and...
B-train n.— «According to the police summary of facts, at 6.57pm on October 8 Harrison was driving a fully laden truck and two articulated trailers—commonly known as a B-train—and was travelling west on SH29, Tauriko, towards the Kaimai Range...
compassion club n.— «A report on Vancouver’s “Cannabis Compassion Club.” As the Canadian government prepares for clinical trials on the medical use of marijuana, the Club is already openly selling cannabis for medical relief.» —“World This Weekend:...
meshblock n.— «Your statement above is talking about linking individual “census profiles” to voting records. That certainly doesn’t happen now. In fact until the most recent census the original documents were all destroyed, leaving only the summary...
mundane n.— «This is my best effort at a summary of Karyn Ashburn’s talk.…On those occasions when she showed up at a con to meet Elise, she saw lots of fans in groups talking. To her they seemed angry and rude. To Elise they seemed nothing of the...
