Advice about college essays from the winner of a top prize for children’s literature: Kelly Barnhill encourages teens to write about experiences that are uniquely their own, from a point of view that is theirs and no one else’s. Plus...
Michelle calls from Peoria, Illinois, about a slang term that she and her friend Liz often heard when they were students at Bradley University in the mid-1990s. In those days before modern social media, to squid or to engage in squidding referred to...
horseracism n.— Note: This term has recently been credited by Jack Shafer as a coinage by Brian Montopoli in 2004, but Montopoli’s coinage came much later than the 1995 use cited here. It does seem likely to be the sort of word that is...
stabbity n.— «“If you get into hand-to-hand combat,” said the sergeant, tying a carrot on to the end of the broomstick, “just poke the enemy with this and say ‘Stabbity, stabbity, stab!’”» —“Re: “a Million...
ibby-jibbies n.— Note: A variant of “heeby-jeebies.” «Now, personally I’ve always had the ibby-jibbies about putting my amphibians in my refrigerator, for fear of killing them.» —“Re: toads” by Michael R...
butthurt adj.—Gloss: angry, indignant, offended, or outraged. Note: Dates to at least as early as 1996. «Oh my. dont get so butthurt…i cant even remember what i wrote.» —“Re: Writers With Half A Brain” by...