moniker (n) A nickname or assumed name. The etymology of this word is curious. Supposedly from Shelta , a kind of patois once found among Irish and English itinerants, which was based on the reversal of consonants in Gaelic words. And the first Agoran who makes a "gimme shelta" comment wil...

As a somewhat high-tech kind of fellow Luddite, I can feel your pain, Bailey. I refuse to get an Ipod, an Xbox or a Wii, for example. Just the name Wii simply urinates me off. So to speak. As for truncated IMs, my problem is that my thumbs are each about an inch wide, while the buttons on my superso...

My long-time tagline "Don't get run over." was one thing my late mother used to tell me every single time I left the house as a child. My new tagline was the other thing. I never did get run over. I never pulled my socks up, either.

-- PW

A work colleague gets an annual epistle from some distant relative or other. It's always filled with the most dire kind of stuff: "Young Bubba is out on probation again...Maybelle's daughter and six grandchildren moved back home; they're living in the dining-room and sleeping on piles of old, d...

The folks I hang out with, who appear to understand things technological (though they appear to have no clue what a gramaphone is) use the term IM both for the computer kind and the cellphone kind of texting. I find IMs to be rather irritating in their brevity. I get messages like "me 2" o...

Perhaps the ubiquitousness of these terms is due to everyone dealing in futures, to some extent or another.

All well and good, but I thought this was the season for dealing in presents.

-- PW

I'm expecting a Psychic Reader to show up at any moment.

-- PW

Perhaps I should post a link to my slim, academic monograph, "Tree Puns in the Early Works of Lord Byron." 'Kept me right on the edge of my seat.' (Readers' Digest Literary Supplement) 'Best nail-biter since Prepositions and You .' (Golfers' Monthly) 'Gothic verse will never be quite as da...

So what wood you have us do?

Grain yourselves in or log out.


-- PW

PW is to alpha what the fat Lady is to everything else, It's not over 'til we hear from PW, great lines, sir

mark Hepplewhite-Chippendale-Sheraton Bailey

Indeed, PW has corked it. (Or did he.....?)

Nah...I was simply getting board.

-- PW

It may be time to cedar writing on the wall, to leaf this knotty thread be, and bough out. In other words, time to Cover Your Ash.

-- PW

A great word. Immortalized in the time-capsule lyrics of Cole Porter:

"When folks who used to ride in jitneys,
Find out Vanderbilts and Whitneys,
Lack baby clothes,
Anything goes."

-- PW

A yiddish word I do believe - must have originated in New York slang?

Not Yiddish, surely. Turkish (from Persian and Arabic).

Not that I mean to be a kibitzer.

-- PW

I watch British movies and read books by Brits so the slang is not so new to me, but I'm always amazed at the differences as well as the similarities in our speech. I'm reading a murder mystery set in the 'estates' of London, every single simple sentance must end in innit [which I took to be isn't ...

So, then we've established that "bugger", not booger or bagger, is only acceptable in Australia, not in the US or UK. oh and by the way how does bollocks not [/b] have a sexual connotation? mark glad-that's-cleared-up Bailey The whole point of swearing is the "shock and awe" eff...