Piper from Reno, Nevada, wonders why a movie trailer is called a trailer when it comes at the beginning of a film. Isn’t a trailer something that follows something else? This is part of a complete episode.
Is the brand in brand-new connected to the kind of brand left by a hot iron? This is part of a complete episode.
Is the synonym for pamphlet spelled flyer or flier? Both. In the UK, it’s more often flyer, and in the US, flier is preferred. This is part of a complete episode.
If you’re an empty nester, you’ve probably wondered about a term for one’s grown offspring. Do you use the term adult children? How about kid-ults? Since the 1960’s, the term has also been used in the marketing and...
On the website Ask Metafilter, I answered a question about dictionaries that I want to elaborate on here. Metafilter user “Aswego” inquired: Is there some super-secret linguistics resource that sorts dictionaries by...
Why are some book titles so incredibly long? A caller complains about book-title inflation, usually consisting of a shorter title followed by a colon and a longer subtitle that seems to sound important and ends with the words “and What To Do...