Once in while I hear someone insist that the expression “half moon” is incorrect, that one should say either “first quarter” or “third quarter.” But “half moon” is established usage and very descriptive, and the terms “first quarter” and “third … Continue reading
Stephen Colbert conducts an experiment with three actors from the popular British series Downton Abbey (Michelle Dockery, Hugh Bonneville and Allen Leech), to see whether it sounds as good with the actors speaking American. Worth 2 1/2 minutes of your … Continue reading
This ends up being funnier than you’d expect because of the dad’s reaction at the end: Link: https://youtu.be/ZDTMQvi3hnc The question is a recent viral puzzle related to another one I first heard decades ago: If H-O-U-S-E spells “house” and H-O-R-S-E … Continue reading
You’ve probably heard that “Black Friday” refers to stores going into profitability, from the use of black ink to signify a positive number on a profit-and-loss statement (as opposed to red ink for negative). But Kevin Drum explains that this … Continue reading
From various places on line. (Note that you don’t need to type the quotation marks shown below, and depending on what browser you use and how it’s configured, you can often type searches right into the address bar.) For useless … Continue reading
A few weeks ago the So Long As It’s Words blog published an informative and amusing post on the origin of the F-word in English. It’s more interesting than one might have thought. The thing I found most interesting, however, … Continue reading