Karen in Charlotte, North Carolina, adores her son’s cleft chin. Her husband, who also has one, calls it a butt chin. Karen prefers chimple, a combination of chin and dimple. Did she coin it? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “If a...
A middle-schooler in Waukesha, Wisconsin, wonders why the word island contains the letter S, and why is it pronounced with a long I and no S sound? In Old English, this word for dry land surrounded by water was igland, coming from words that mean...
Peter from Easton, Pennsylvania, asks about rapscallion, an old-fashioned term for a rascal, scamp, or scoundrel that can also be used affectionately. Although he once thought he had invented it, the word is recorded in English by the 17th century...
Grant shoots holes in a story that just won’t die that about “son of a gun” and babies born aboard sailing ships.
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How did the word gay go from meaning lighthearted to homosexual? Also, why are elementary schools sometimes called grammar schools? Plus, imeldific, gone pecan, random Scrabble words, and the difference between borrow and lend. And the etiquette of...
flarf n. a style of poetry in which poems are formed by a collage of quasi-random, serendipitously found words and phrases; poems or a poem in the style. Editorial Note: The word history given in the site linked by the first citation is believed to...
