Punctuation is more than a set of rules. In her book On the Mark: From Periods to Interrobangs, How Punctuation Remade the World (Bookshop\|Amazon), writer Florence Hazrat traces the history of those dots and squiggles, showing how they convey tone...
Christiane from Brunswick, Germany, says her family uses the phrase um den Pudding gehen or “to walk around the pudding,” a phrase that refers to taking a stroll around the block or neighborhood. This idiom is apparently unique to northern and...
Megan from Savannah, Georgia, is curious about a phrase her father used: down cellar behind the axe, a phrase whose meaning she never quite understood. Down cellar, meaning “down in the cellar,” is common in New England and the Canadian Maritimes...
How long can a newly married woman be called a bride? Does bride apply only as long as her wedding day, or does it extend right on through the couple’s silver anniversary and beyond? Plus, insightful advice about writing from a Pulitzer...
If you’re going to hit the road in a motor home, best to bone up on some of the slang used by RV enthusiasts, like stinky slinky, PUPs, and gassers. A stinky slinky is a sewer hose, a PUP is a pop-up camper, and a gasser is a motor home powered by...
When your server brings food to the table and inquires as to who ordered which dish, that’s informally known in the restaurant biz as auctioning. If your meal is delayed because the person who took your order forgot about it, that’s called a...
