Here’s another newsletter from A Way with Words! Is text messaging a sign of the destruction of English? No! On this past weekend’s show, we talked about it, as well as the names of your toes, “recombobulation,” word blends...
prop n.— «Keeping their annual tradition alive, oddsmakers at the Las Vegas Hilton sports book have released the world’s most comprehensive list of Super Bowl betting propositions. Other Las Vegas casinos will follow with their own...
tippler house n.— «He welded in the coal preparation house, or the tippler house in mine parlance, for 11 years. He was up top where he could see the sun, the fog and the rain and feel the breeze.» —“He welded way through med...
dichro n.— «Dorothy offered to teach him and LuAnn how to make dichroic glass jewelry.…They will be showing their dichro jewelry—as it’s known in industry speak.…Using all the colors of the rainbow and then some, LuAnn and Pat...
nuff-nuff n.— «Getting It Wrong: Mr Sandler and his nuff-nuff voice in The Waterboy.» —“Movie Heaven & Mirth” by Leigh Paatsch Herald Sun (Melbourne, Australia) May 13, 1999. (source: Double-Tongued...
dead man’s lever n.— «Having produced or presented most of Australia’s current affairs programs, with the occasional live disaster, I used to joke that we ought to have a “dead man’s lever” such as those on trains which would...