In an electric car, the trunk is in the front, not the back. Automotive engineers refer to this part of the vehicle as the frunk, a portmanteau of front and trunk. For a while, the Jaguar company, which is based in the UK, instead called it the...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski pitches a puzzle about the names of minor-league baseball teams. For example, which team’s name might refer either to a type of weather phenomenon or a wooden roller coaster on the Coney Island boardwalk? This is part of...
The anatomy of effective prose, and the poetry of anatomy. Ever wonder what it’d be like to audit a class taught by a famous writer? A graduate student’s essay offers a taste of a semester studying with author Annie Dillard. Also, what...
Nathan, a sailor at the United States Navy base in Norfolk, Virginia, reports a vigorous dispute among his fellow servicemembers: Is gruntled a word? Nathan feels gruntled must be a word, arguing that it’s clearly the opposite of disgruntled...
mooncrete n.— «After the movie, we talked about how you would build the moon base and whether you could actually create concrete using the lunar regolith. There was a specialist who designed and worked on something called mooncrete. You...
commod bod n.— «She also blamed the federal commodity program for low-income people that many American Indian families receive. The offerings include lots of pastas, rice and other high-carbohydrate foods that contribute to what Burger...