A caller wonders if she’s being hypersensitive about the way her boss addresses her in emails. Can the use of an employee’s first name ever reflect a power differential? And: a community choir director wants a term for “the act of...
The Rockefeller State Park Preserve near Pleasantville, New York, features a fine example of a glacial erratic, a giant rock left behind thousands of years ago by a glacier as it moved. In this case, the word erratic functions as a noun. Both the...
The words tough, through, and dough all end in O-U-G-H. So why don’t they rhyme? A lively new book addresses the many quirks of English by explaining the history of words and phrases. And: have you ever been in a situation where a group makes...
Language is always evolving, and that’s also true for American Sign Language. A century ago, the sign for “telephone” was one fist below your mouth and the other at your ear, as if you’re holding an old-fashioned candlestick...
Nick in Palm Springs, California, wonders about the phrase Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt. Springing up the 1970s, the saying been there, done that is sometimes followed by any of several variants, including got the T-shirt; worn the T...
A wet dress rehearsal is a run-through of all the processes required before a rocket launch, up until, but not including, liftoff. What makes this simulation wet is that the rocket’s fuel tanks are filled, then drained once the countdown clock...