Sometimes it’s a challenge to give a book a chance: How many pages should you read before deciding it’s not worth your time? There’s a new formula to help with that decision — and it’s all based on your age. • Have you ever...
In the Tlingit & Haida cultures, there are many stories involving the kushtaka (also spelled kooshdakhaa, kushtahkah, and kooshdaa kaa, and stressed on the final syllable), a being associated with the land otter. The name shows up in several...
Jay in Barre, Vermont, asks: If someone is passionate about conservation, they’re called a conservationist, but if someone is passionate about conversation, they’re a conversationalist. Why the extra syllable in conversationalist? This...
Funny cat videos and cute online photos inspire equally adorable slang terms we use to talk about them. • Also, when a salamander is not a salamander, the story of an Italian term for a dish towel used halfway across the world, Bozo buttons...
Novelist Charles Dickens and the musician Prince were very different types of artists, but they also had a lot in common. A new book chronicling their extraordinary careers becomes a larger meditation on perfectionism and creativity itself. Plus...
On the game show Um, Actually, the host reads out a series of supposed facts about various geeky subjects, and contestants must interject with the correct information, prefacing their answers with the phrase Um, Actually. That’s the...