A hilarious news story about a pair of heroic terriers that chase off a bear from a California home leads to an equally hilarious correction about the difference between black bears and brown bears. Big ups to Squirt and Mei Mei! This is part of a...
Katie, a biology professor in San Diego, California, reports that her students use low-key in ways she’s not used to hearing, as in I was low-key lost in class today, meaning “I was sort of lost in class today.” Linguists Pamela...
Tony says when he was growing up in Orange County, California, he and his friends would use the exclamation Moded! meaning “In your face!” or “Busted!” This expression, and variations of it such as Molded! and Moted!, was...
Lisa says her whole canasta group in San Diego, California, wonders if there’s a term breasting to denote one’s playing cards close to the chest so that others can’t see them. New card players often lack proprioception, that is, a...
A hundred years ago, suffragists lobbied to win women the right to vote. Linguistically speaking, though, suffrage isn’t about “suffering.” It’s from a Latin word that involves voting. Plus: military cadences often include...
Jody calls are military cadences based on the exploits of Jody, an imaginary character blamed for all the things that might go wrong back home while a soldier is deployed, such as losing one’s girlfriend or car. In a master’s thesis...
