"Illiterate Boyfriend" tests

Alaina Demopoulos, "Women are giving their partners the ‘Illiterate Boyfriend’ test: ‘Do your best to pronounce these words’", The Guardian 9/3/2026: There are common non-negotiables we look for in a prospective partner. They should be kind, caring and thoughtful. Having a shared interest helps. So does remembering important dates and anniversaries. But how much does […]

Backronym of the year

…is ACHOO — "Ever sneeze immediately after stepping into the sun? It's not a coincidence": Picture this: You walk out the door on a bright, sunny morning. And before you’ve even reached the car, you sneeze. Maybe even two or three times in a row. It’s not allergies, and it’s not a coincidence. It’s a […]

"Colonel Tom Parker" == Andreas Conelis van Kuijk

Dolly Parton's passing inspired Josh Marshall to dive deeper into one of the adjacent "Mysteries of Americana", namely how Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk "hopped off a ship in New York City" at the age of 20, in 1929, and eventually managed to set himself up as Elvis Presley's manager Colonel Tom Parker, a "cigar-chomping, hard-charging […]

Evolution of laughing

…and speech? or at least "vocal control"? Chiara De Gregorio, Marina Davila-Ross, & Adriano R. Lameira, "Rhythm and timing in laughter reveal that human vocal plasticity falls on a hominid continuum", Nature Communications Biology, 6/25/2026: Laughter is an important, universal form of human non-linguistic vocal expression and, being shared by all extant great apes, offers […]

Unusual risks

The title of Sal Mercogliano's latest "What's Going on With Shipping?" vlog offers two idiom extensions: "Understanding Global Shipping Risks: Black Swans, Black Jellyfish & Black Elephants". The "black swan" metaphor starts from Juvenal (Satire VI, line 165), who described a virtuous wife as "Rara auis in terris, nigroque simillima cycno ("a rare bird on […]

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