David Foster Wallace’s book Infinite Jest includes many unusual turns of phrase, including nose-pore-range for something very close, toadbelly white for a particular shade of the color, howling fantods for the heebie-jeebies, and greebles for...
The term white-livered, like lily-livered, can describe someone timid. But an old folk tradition, once common in the South, associates having a white liver or white spots on one’s liver with an insatiable sexual appetite. The terms white...
Someone should write a love letter to a new book called Letters of Note. It’s a splendid collection of all kinds of correspondence through the ages: Elvis Presley fans writing to the president, children making suggestions to famous...
in-law chaser n.— «Perhaps $714 million wouldn’t sound like a bad price if the politicians had to brave what the Navajos call an “in-law chaser” blowing snow into a virtual white-out at gusts up to 50 mph, just so their animals could...
ghost bike n.— «The latest incident came on the same day local cyclists had put up what’s called a ghost bike near the spot where 38-year-old William Korol died on Saturday in a hit-and run crash on Stony Plain Road. The ghost bikes...
stumpbreak v.— «What did Lee Corso do? He performed what is known in Morgantown as a “stumpbreaking.” He just stumpbroke Slaton and White’s Heisman(eer) chances. Corso basically said “I’m the man, let me Repeat, I am the man. Got my...