February 23:
Officers were called to the residence, a site of a possible manmouseslaughter. A match to the tire tread imprint was immediately found on the resident’s Toyota automobile. “IF I did it, it was an accident. I didn’t have anything against him,” the woman claimed. However, after officers searched the garage, [...]
adjective:
Being a substitute or imitation, usually an inferior one.
Then there was the sheaf of hostile letters larded with ersatz sympathy, strained sarcasm or pure spite.
– “Time for GAA to become a persuader”, Irish Times, April 13, 1998
Ersatz derives from German Ersatz, “a substitute.”
This word would be great to remember when you’re stuck with a “z” [...]
A friend’s 4 year-old daughter recently listened to a story about her mother’s grandma, who she was, what she liked. The usual stories.
Then she asked, “where IS Grandma now?”
“Well, Grandma got very old, and she died,” her mother replied matter-of-factly.
“She did??”
“Yes,” said the mom, bracing herself for The Discussion of death and dying.
“Who SHOT [...]
I’m having trouble writing anything lately. I think I’ve been reading too much blogging advice, and it just depresses me. Did you bloggers out there know these things?
1. Posting every day is passe — just clutters up people’s readers. Work the system, I say.
2. No one cares what I had [...]
Many bloggers know there are awesome blogs and things out there, floating free for your perusal. You may have seen those lists of blogs that you may not read but should. Me, I get overwhelmed by that. If you list more than, say, 2 things, that’s 1 too many new pieces of [...]
intransitive verb:
1. To make a harsh cry.
2. To have a noisy argument.
3. A shrill, discordant sound.
John met Angela head-to-head and there was a lot of bellowing and caterwauling.
– Matthew Parris, “Prescott grapples with his feminine side”, Times (London), December 14, 2000
Caterwaul is from Middle English caterwawen, “to cry as a cat,” either from Medieval Dutch [...]
First, I noticed the “movie size” box on sale at the drug store this week. Such value! BUY!
Second, turns out Kid likes them, too. EAT! Initially, I felt proud. Such spicy things she’s eating, yes, sugary, but also SPICY! OLE!
Third, when left to her own devices while we slept [...]
