A Boardman, Ohio, was confused as a child after reading about “guerrilla warfare” and wondering what those big, hairy primates could possibly be fighting about. This is part of a complete episode.
In mining country, a stripper is an huge piece of machinery churns up the soil in search of coal veins. This caused no end of hilarity one Christmas Day for a Terre Haute, Indiana, family when a new in-law was scandalized by the thought that all the...
More than a century ago, the Springfield Republican newspaper in Massachusetts proposed a new word for that twitterpated time in an adolescent’s life when one discovers the joys of flirtation: being all girled up. The Republican is also the...
Schadenfreude, from German for “damage-joy,” means “delight in the misfortune of others.” This is part of a complete episode.
How dry is it? In the middle of a drought, you might answer that question is “So dry the trees are bribing the dogs.” This is part of a complete episode.
What makes a word beautiful? Is it merely how it sounds? Or does a word’s meaning affect its aesthetic effect? Max Beerbohm had some helpful thoughts about gondola, scrofula, and other words in his essay “The Naming of Streets.”...