If someone urges you to spill the tea, they probably don’t want you tipping over a hot beverage. Originally, the tea here was the letter T, as in “truth.” To spill the T means to “pass along truthful information.” Plus...
A new book about how animals perceive their environment reveals immense worlds beyond our own. A bee can see ultraviolet light, catfish have taste buds all over their bodies, and manatees use highly sensitive lips to examine nearby objects. Also...
Having a hard time with writer’s block? So did Gustave Flaubert while trying to get his great novel Madame Bovary (Bookshop|Amazon) underway, telling a correspondent: I am finding it hard to get my novel started. I suffer from stylistic...
Alex from Columbia, Missouri, wonders about rank and file, meaning “the members of the body of an organization as opposed to its leaders.” In 12th-century France, the words renc or ranc referred to a row of soldiers. The word file means...
Our multi-talented Quiz Guy Greg Pliska, served as musical composer for the television documentary Flying Monsters 3-D. That experience inspired him to create a puzzle using phrases that have the same letter appearing three times in a row. For...
Why do we call a run-down area skid row? Here’s a picture of a skid road from Out West, vol. 19, ed. Charles F. Lummis, 1902, Out West Company, Los Angeles This is part of a complete episode.