Online laughter
Not long ago, I was chatting online with a friend, and something made me laugh, and I realized I wasn't sure how to type that. I often use heh or...
Food and serial commas
From an article about rescued Chinese miners: But today rescuers hailed a miracle as they pulled more than 100 miners to safety after eight days trapped underground. They had survived...
There can be only one (or two)
Heard an unintentionally funny line on the radio this morning: "There's only one person who can answer this, and that's y'all." —Car Talk caller, 4 April 2010. Of course, "y'all"...
economies
Recently saw a spam subject line that I thought said "Succeed in a truth economy." Which brought all sorts of interesting science fictional ideas to mind. Until I saw that...
theophory
Sometime around the beginning of March, I came across the word theophory, which Wikipedia says is "the practice of embedding the name of a god or a deity in, usually,...
Publishing Dictionary
Yet another in the long list of dictionaries/glossaries available online: a Publishing Dictionary, in which literary agent Jessica Faust provides definitions of a few dozen publishing-related terms....
manugrapher
According to the Dictionary of Occupational Titles, a manugrapher's job is to trace and paint advertising material, including lettering. Which is pretty much what one might expect from the roots...
A sign to help with the alphabet game
The alphabet game involves trying to find a written instance of each letter of the alphabet while traveling by car. Sometimes the rules require that the letters appear only on...
Australian slang
Recently encountered an annotated transcription of a podcast from 2007 covering a wide variety of Australian slang terms....
Glossaries: Vietnam War, general military
Recently happened across two useful online glossaries, probably while editing a story: Glossary of military terms and slang from the Vietnam War. Wiktionary's Glossary of military slang....