You’re in a business meeting. Is it bad manners to take out your phone to send or read a text? A new study suggests that how you feel about mid-meeting texting differs depending on your age and sex. Grant and Martha offer book recommendations...
The stereotypical Boston accent is non-rhotic, meaning it drops the “r” sound. Before World War II, such lack of rhoticity was considered prestigious and was taught to film and radio actors to help them sound sophisticated. This is part...
Martha shares a British article that begins, “Boffins have discovered a strange new type of spongy mushroom.” But what, you may ask, is a boffin? The word boffin denotes an intellectual with a specific expertise and general lack of...
citizen science n.— «The result is an impressively long-running example of “citizen science,” the term for projects in which amateurs gather field data for future research, making up in numbers what we lack in training and...
globster n.— «Many monster enthusiasts believe that huge, unidentified masses that occasionally wash up on beaches throughout the world are sea monsters. These finds, often called globsters, are obviously flesh, yet have decayed so badly...
Like mushrooms in fallen leaves, new words keep popping up overnight. Also, is there an English word that means “the in-laws of your son or daughter“? And what does it mean when someone says, “Well, that was odder than Dick’s...