"The Romans were so smitten with Zadar — the Old Town is a 400-by-1,000-meter peninsula (about 100 acres) framed by Adriatic islands — they gave..." more...
"...the ability to declaim for portentous minutes about the revolution in world affairs brought about by technological change/environmental..." more...
"It was the subject of a recent cover story in San Francisco magazine that quotes a Berkeley mother so stressed out about the extravagance of her..." more...
"Nope, I'm a kiwi-eating, darjeeling-swilling eater of world foods. To me, coffee is the #1 reason not to be a locavore, with greek olives a close..." more...
"It's not arcane, but one of my favorite units of measure is the Sverdrup. In oceanography, it's a measure of the volume of water transported by a..." more...
"They had taken supper, an inedible excrescence, at a restaurant across the parking lot, in a booth beneath a faux Tiffany lamp, served by a spotty..." more...
"thanks reesetee! i think i'd feel a sense of accomplishment if i even had a halfway decent paragraph of fiction by november 30, so there's not much..." more...
"I'm having pre-wrimo anxiety--trying to decide whether to go for it or not. It seemed like such a good idea back in July, but reality is setting in...." more...
"One of my pet peeves is when someone says 'you times the first number by the second' instead of 'you multiply the the first number by the second.'..." more...
"We are in search of an electroporator capable of delivering 15V for 50 ms pulses that also has a plug for an external electrode. Thank you for your..." more...
"Reminds me of the "Verbivore Challenge" on the radio show "A Way With Words," a cheesy show about words that was on KPBS when I lived in San Diego...." more...
"Gnatstown reminds me of the Icelandic town of Myvatn (sp?), which translates to 'Fly Lake.' A beautiful little town, but unfortunately it is is..." more...
"Absolutely. I'm originally from Pittsburgh, not far from the Youghiogheny River. Unless I've been mispronouncing it my whole life, the first 'gh' is..." more...
"Very seriously. This is apparently a town, a state park, and a rest stop on the garden state parkway. Despite desperate attempts last weekend, I..." more...
"This reminds me of one of my favorite misunderstandings of lyrics. A friend of mine thought that the singer of 'Lowrider' kept saying 'Low, dry dove,..." more...
"quixotic is my favorite (though it's not easy to choose with so many good words!). i like both the reference to a literary character and the way..." more...
"She's like this cleavagey slutbomb walking around going 'Ooh. Check me out, I'm wicked cool. I'm five by five.'" -- Willow, 'This Year's Girl'" more...
"It's amazing how easy it is to get a rise out of scientists -- I'm no exception :) Black sheep we may be, but plain old sheep, we are not. I think..." more...
"Um...'global warming' and 'power crystals' in the same category? The phrase 'global warming' may be vague, but the phenomenon is very, very real. As..." more...
"sometimes finding lists like that on websites takes the joy out of compiling the list yourself (waiting for the end of 'car talk' with pencil in..." more...
"'realtor' often becomes 'reel-i-tur' when it should be 'reel-tur' or 're-uhl-tur.' as for vietnamese and spaghetti, i'm as perplexed as you are,..." more...
"I often hear "supposably" instead of "supposedly." Then there's Oregon. How most of America can mispronounce the name of one of our own states is..." more...
"Portuguese word for a feeling of longing for something that one is fond of, which is gone, but might return in a distant future. It often carries a..." more...
"There have been studies that show that your brain is very active when you're using hesitation words (such as "um"), so they're actually an important..." more...