How colors got their names, and a strange way to write. The terms blue and orange arrived in English via French, so why didn’t we also adapt the French for black and white? • Not every example of writing goes in one direction across the page...
Sure, there’s winter, spring, summer, and fall. But the seasons in between have even more poetic names. In Alaska, greenup describes a sudden, dramatic burst of green after a long, dark winter. And there are many, many terms for a cold snap...
Why do we refer to “testing or going beyond limits” as pushing the envelope? In aeronautics, to push the envelope means to try to go past the edge of the aircraft’s perceived capability. In the 1980s, the phrase was popularized by...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski’s brain teaser involves words and phrases that the late writer Tom Wolfe helped popularize. For example, what phrase is associated with Wolfe’s 1979 book with a title that might be paraphrased as “Just What...
Hey-o! It's another newsletter from A Way with Words This past weekend's show was completely new. We tackled the expression "put a snap on the grouch bag," how to pronounce "patronize," and the rise of the German word...
social x-ray n.— «An original “social X-ray,” the phrase coined by Tom Wolfe to describe the premier rich and thin socialites of the Upper East Side, she never hesitated to admit that she loved making an entrance, loved being...