Ah, I've always wanted to have just enough money to be considered eccentric rather than crazy.

The whole word is used as a noun only in reference to a collection of previously published works

Oh no! Flanders and Swann have a different idea, as realized in their
song "A Transport of Delight". Listen to it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7wnUIRpqGg

My immediate reaction to this was that the "in-" meant "not", as in infrequent or inconvenient, but those are adjectives and inosculate is a verb. Are there any exceptions to this dichotomy?

At the end of my college years, a good friend had a succinct reaction: "You're congraduated!"

So the little "leaf devils" that one sees spinning on city streets on breezy fall days are saltating. Is a waterspout an extra-large example of this phenomenon? The most memorable instance I've ever witnessed occurred when driving past a mint field near the Oregon coast. In the middle of t...

Debby, Beware of the TLA (three-letter acronym) or FLA (four-letter acronym, although "five" has been suggested). It's simple -- there are just too many acronyms; one of the horrors of modern connected life.

This term surfaced in the discussion about "tack". Baste (verb), in sewing, is to apply long loose stitches to hold the fabric in place until the final seam has been stitched. The noun is "basting". In cooking, it's applying a liquid or sauce to a food item, usually meat, while c...

It's becoming harder and harder to determine the "true facts". That's what a good education helps with -- teaching one to think. Maybe this was easier in the last century, even with its bias against female scientists, but I haven't given up my belief that education is still valuable, even ...

As I grew up in Baltimore, my older sister teased me with tales of the Snallygaster that allegedly inhabited Deep Creek Lake in Western Maryland. The Snallygaster is indeed a creature of Maryland folklore (see "The Unsettling Legend of Maryland’s Native Cryptid, the Snallygaster" at https:...

Nope. "Multi-tacking" would presume that each stitch is solidly tied off. Basting implies that the thread is free to be pulled out completely from any point along the seam. Basting is often used as a temporary measure to fix a difficult join into place before putting in the final seam; tha...

"Tack", in sewing, is one stitch tied off at a single point. Baste is continuous. Tacks might be used to stabilize trouser cuffs, for example.

A nice short word that probably has too many meanings for the Doctor to want to tackle it. 1. As a verb, to attach or fasten; as a noun, the object used to make the fastening; generally associated with woodworking. A tack in sewing is also a quick attachment. 2. In sailing, the direction of the vess...

The link to the article, "Peale's Mastodon: The Skeleton in Our Closet", is broken. But the article can be found at https://commonplace.online/article/peales-mastodon-the-skeleton-in-our-closet/ . I "grew up" with Peale's painting, "Exhumation of the Mastodon", being ta...

Enjoy it! Total eclipses are well worth chasing. I recommend a good pair of welder's goggles. For a stupendous story of an eclipse chaser, with photos, see https://www.wendycarlos.com/eclipse.html (My two experiences were in Nova Scotia, camping, with a sound truck circling the campground playing &q...

My mother invariably described my room as a hurrah's nest. Merriam-Webster provides a context that makes sense:

a tangle of debris blocking a trail or stream