Quiz Guy Greg Pliska presents a puzzle about the Oxcar awards, given to fictitious films, the names of which differ by just one letter from the names of the real 2010 Best Picture Oscar nominees. Here’s one such plot: “George Clooney plays a...
“Not the brightest bulb in the Christmas tree lights,” “The wind is blowing but nothing’s moving,” “A few tacos short of a combo platter.” After Grant tells a story on himself, the hosts discuss euphemistic ways of saying someone’s not playing with...
If you need proof that language is powerful, here’s some. Researchers at Cornell recently reported that kids are more likely to eat their veggies if they’re told the food has enticing names like “X-ray Vision Carrots” and “Dinosaur Broccoli Trees.”...
Twinjury n.— «On May 29th, James Coleman of Bristol smacked his skull on a tree branch while filing updates to the Twitter service (or tweeting) from his Blackberry during a run. His accident spawned a new word: a “Twinjury.”» —“Rethinking rights...
Barack Obama wants to put people to work building roads and bridges. But how about a federal jobs program for out-of-work writers? Also: why do we call it a flight of wine? How did the haircut called a mullet get its name?
vendorizing n.— «The first problem I came to is that, stupid me for not knowing, activesupport bundles some gems (they coined the term “vendorizing” but it’s just bundling, and it’s just as well ); of these four (builder, i18n, memcache-client and...