What does it mean to vet a political candidate? The word “vet” comes from veterinarian, specifically the ones who would examine a horse before a race to make sure it was healthy and eligible. Similarly, one might vet a candidate to make...
Listeners have been sharing some of their personal Scrabble rules, including new uses for the blank tile. For example, one variation allows for the tile to be removed and reused, so if Grant were to play the blank tile as an “E” and...
Bow chicka wow wow is the joking riff that signals a sexual double entendre, and a cleaner echo is brown chicken, brown cow. The phrase mimics the same rhythm and shows up in Trace Adkins’s country song Brown Chicken, Brown Cow, with a video full of...
A listener wonders why his girlfriend remarks “hubba-hubba” when he’s dressing up for the night. The flirty call had its heyday in the 1940s, when World War II soldiers would see a pretty lady walking down the street. Although no one’s sure of the...
Peter, calling from the coastal town of La Jolla, California, asks for a word for the bright pools of silver light that form on the ocean when sunbeams poke through cloud cover. Albedo describes the proportion of light a surface reflects, and...
Is there a word that describes someone who’s good at visualizing how best to pack a suitcase or car? A Michigan woman is sure she heard such a term for someone who can visualize 3-D arrangements in advance, but darned if she can recall what it...