The practice of blurring out images or text in ads, movies, and websites is called greeking. It’s possibly a reference to the phrase It’s Greek to me, used to describe something unintelligible. This is part of a complete episode.
Our Quiz Guy Greg Pliska has a game based on Google searches, or at least what Google thinks you’re searching. For example, what do Elmo, pink, and plant all have in common? Google suggests them, in that order, after you’ve entered the...
Sweet baby reindeer! It’s almost Christmas and we’ve got a lot of wrapping to do. Last weekend’s episode is live online and in iTunes. In it, we shared quotations about writing, talked about whether “ladies” is...
Is the term “ladies” an offensive way to refer to a group of women? As a recent discussion on Ask Metafilter revealed, many interpret it as outdated, condescending, or patronizing. The hosts conclude it all depends on context. This is...
Databases like the Google Books Corpus can also be used to follow text over time. For example, as the women’s suffrage movement grew around 1910, words relating to women’s rights grew in popularity and frequency of usage. This is part of...
If you’re in Bangladesh, the expression that translates as “oiling your mustache in anticipation of the jackfruit tree bearing fruit” makes perfect sense. In English, it means “don’t count your chickens.” A...