leaper, leapling
According to a Detroit Free Press article, "Leap year babies hop through hoops of joy, pain of novelty birthday" (doesn't "Hoops of Joy" sound like it should be part of...
Proverbs
The other night, Mary Anne noted that the sheets for the air mattress were in the dryer, and that once they were dry, I would have to make my own...
doctor
Before I start in on today's entry, I have a little snippet of story for you to read: I walked down the hospital corridor away from my room. One of...
arb
"Arb" is apparently a short form of "arbitrage trader." The Wall Street Journal had a blog entry recently that, a couple paragraphs after referring to arbitrage traders, included the phrase...
dule and teen
Dante Gabriel Rossetti's translation of Villon's "The Ballad of Dead Ladies" (the poem whence comes the phrase "But where are the snows of yesteryear") includes this line: (From Love he...
presidential glass
According to Wikipedia, "presidential glass" is another term for a particular kind of mostly-transparent teleprompter commonly used by US Presidents....
BLEVE
On a video about an explosion, I heard an announcer use a term that sounded like "blevvies." I got curious and Googled it; turns out it's an acronym. According to...
fossicking
"Fossicking" is an Australian and Cornish (Cornwallish? Cornwallian?) term for prospecting. In Australia, it can apparently also mean "rummaging." Encountered it in a cover letter for a story submitted to...
Two arguments about intended meaning
Over at Language Log last week, linguist Geoffrey Pullum posted an entry titled "Yale sluts and Princeton philosophers," about a threatened lawsuit over a Yale fraternity's writing a sign saying...
Two Americans
Entertaining mistake, from a statement by Barack Obama about Edwards dropping out of the race: John and Elizabeth Edwards have always believed deeply ... that two Americans can become one....