Word birth is Deb Roy’s term for the moment a child’s babble sharpens into a recognizable word. To study it, the MIT cognitive scientist and his wife wired their home with 11 cameras and 14 microphones, plus a privacy button, and recorded their...
Some office workers say their word processor’s spellchecker always flags the words overnighted and overnighting. Are those words acceptable in a business environment? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Overnighted”...
nerdfury n.— «At that point, what drivingblind likes to call the nerdfury will begin. Posters will show up from nowhere to shower you with disdain, tell you how that place used to be good but has now totally sold out and—most important to...
historical rhyme n.— «Take George Bush. By whom I mean George Bush (1796-1859), first cousin of the president’s great-great-great-grandfather. It would be hard to find a more unlikely forebear.…He published his first book...
filmanthropy n.— «And fellow owner Ted Leonsis? Let him tell it: “I coined a term called “filmanthropy’” he said, referring to the $2 million he poured into a movie about violence in Nanking, China, in the 1930s...
kahunas n.pl.— «I wonder if he’ll accuse opposing attorneys in court of having a vendetta against him when he gets his kahunas kicked in court.» —“Re: Ted has no honor” by Michael Lodman Usenet: alt.fraternity...