Do you refer to your dog or cat as “somebody”? As in: When you love somebody that much, you don’t mind if they slobber. In other words, is your pet a somebody or a something? Also, for centuries, there was little consistency in the...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski’s puzzle is about animal anatomy, specifically nouns and adjectives formed by combining the name of an animal with another word. For example, what zoologically-related noun is associated with the idea of “a high...
Anatomy is full of eponyms — that is, words inspired by the name of a person. For examples, there are the fallopian tubes, the Achilles heel, and the eustachian tubes. But there’s a movement in anatomy to replace eponyms with more scientific...
A Burlington, Vermont, caller wants to know: Is horseradish so named because of this root’s strong resemblance to part of a horse’s anatomy? This is part of a complete episode.
monkey muscle n.— «The symptoms you describe are most likely the result of a tear in the one of the two heads of the main calf muscle—the gastrocnemius. This is also known as a “torn monkey muscle” injury, for reasons I don’t...
nerdgasm n.— «When nerds partake in one of these activities, they may have what is commonly referred to as a “nerdgasm.” Contrary to what the name implies, nerdgasms rarely involve the expulsion of bodily fluids. They usually...