Storrowing credit for a neo-neo-neologism

by | Oct 7, 2013 | reading & writing, urbanism

This morning the estimable editors at UniversalHub described a truck as “freshly storrowed,” meaning that it had been driven under a famously (but not famously enough I guess) too-low overpass on Storrow Drive and either gotten stuck or had the top ripped...

Always Be Knolling

by | Sep 24, 2013 | reading & writing, working

Via BoingBoing, a verb for all seasons: knoll. I drew a blank with knoll in this sense on the usual dictionary sites, but Wikipedia is hep to it, as is Urban Dictionary, admittedly with a few dubious variants. Cory sez, “Knolling is ‘the process of...

Plural of the day: Miasmata

by | Sep 23, 2013 | reading & writing

I’ve been having a terrible allergy season. That, and maybe just a little too much They Might Be Giants, caused me to research the word miasma (as in a cloud of ragweed that follows you around) for a possible Word of the Day post. Here’s what I found,...

Word of the season: Equinox

by | Sep 22, 2013 | reading & writing, science!

You probably know that today is the Autumnal (in the Northern hemisphere) Equinox, the end of Summer and the start of Autumn. In fact, it’s right about now, 5:44pm ET. I thought it was odd that the “day and night of equal length” was at a particular...

Let's call the matzo ball off

by | Jun 3, 2013 | culture, reading & writing

A nice Indian American boy from New York won the national spelling bee on the yiddish word “knaydel.” That’s a matzo (not matzah, don’t get me started) ball if you’re among the perplexed. Whether the Bar Mitzvah-aged winner picked up his...