Steven in Cavendish, Vermont, remembers this saying from his Cockney grandfather: There I was on the dog and bone, with me mate Charlie, when my trouble and strife took a tumble on the apples and pears, and I couldn’t Adam and Eve it...
The phrase “I don’t know him from Adam” suggests that if the person were standing next to the person in Western tradition thought to be earliest human being, the two would be indistinguishable. The phrase “I don’t know...
The Phantom Tollbooth, the beloved children’s book by Norton Juster and illustrated by Jules Feiffer, turns 50 this year. There are two new 50th anniversary editions of the book. As Adam Gopnik notes in a New Yorker magazine article, the book...
adultism n.— «One specific “ism” that GLSEN takes great pains to address is “adultism,” which the guide defines as “behaviors and attitudes that adults are better than young people, and entitled to act upon them without their agreement.”...
ragdoll physics n.— «There are a lot of details in games that slightly improve the overall-feel, but that doesn’t change the gameplay. Things like being able to look at your feet in FPS games adds to the impression players get but isn’t a...
lo-vegetarian n.— «Gradually, “lacto-ovo vegetarians” grouped and shortened their title to “vegetarian.” This is why I sometime use the term “lo-vegetarian” where the “lo” stands for...