Hi! "It was bright cold day in April and the clocks were striking thirteen." In this week's episode of "A Way with Words," we share favorite first lines. Also, beanplating, meeting cute, looking like "a tree full of...
citizen science n.— «The result is an impressively long-running example of “citizen science,” the term for projects in which amateurs gather field data for future research, making up in numbers what we lack in training and...
dirt-baller n.— «Still, long gone is the time when anyone could suggest that Nadal was a clay-court specialist, what some Americans call “a dirt-baller.”» —“Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer win in Monaco” by Mark...
spitbite n.— «There were lines so skilfully crisscrossed by the artist and so perfectly printed that they looked 3-D, like actual black threads. I learned a new word, spitbite, a process of mixing ink with soap (originally spit, I gather)...
power wall n.— «Along with the covering, the new rules prohibit tobacco advertising in stores that usually comes in the form of large racks or displays of tobacco products and signs, which are sometimes referred to as power walls...
lecherscope n.— «The absence of women was a severe trial, and several home-made telescopes—or “lecherscopes,” as they were called—were assembled in the hope that an unflagging surveillance of the windows of the village houses...