Your counterintuitively spelled business name of the month is QuiQui.me. It’s so bad, writes Domain Name Wire, that “the company includes the pronunciation in its logo.” Reminds me of Nyoombl.
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How an artist brought an obscure 17th-century word, “parbunkells,” back to life.
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Mike Pope introduces us to Matthew effect, ragescroll, and other words he discovered recently.
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What do Major League Baseball players Yasmany Tomás, Yasmani Grandal, Yasiel Puig, Yoenis Céspedes, and Yunel Escobar have in common? Keith Olbermann explains a curious trend in Cuban names.
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"Sushi" actually only refers to the vinegared rice. The rolls with seaweed and raw fish are actually called "Sushi's Monster".
— Antonio Lulic (@AntonioLulic) June 26, 2015
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The failed attempt to rebrand the word hacker. (Via Jesse Sheidlower.)
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How the unicorn—any American software company with a valuation of at least $1 billion—got its name.
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“I is for INFIX, edumacational or sweary / J is for JUNCTURE: I, Mary? I’m airy.” Stan Carey’s A to Z of linguistics in rhyming couplets.
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“From Ambrosina Events to Zephaniah Ferry, the wonderful character names Dickens never got to use.” Via Dustbury.
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"Above board," "the cat's out of the bag," and other seafaring lingo that crawled onto terra firma.
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The self-publishing platform Vook has renamed itself Pronoun. (For more on Vook the brand name and vook the generic term, see my October 2009 column for the Visual Thesaurus.)
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“Spongeworthy” was easy. Translating the rest of “Seinfeld” into German? Not so much.
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Encylopedia Briannica—not to be confused with Encyclopedia Britannica—schools us on “cutthroat compounds,” including daredevil, scarecrow, and rotgut.
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Hip nickname for South L.A. leaves some feeling lonely. (Hat tip: MJF.)
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New Yoplait ads feature a talking cow with a French accent. And it’s a male cow.
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Bill Cosby may have just lost his last supporter:
Did you know there was a band called Cosby Sweater? Needless to say, it has changed its name. http://t.co/8t7h4pNWKhpic.twitter.com/6qRanpVg0G
— M. Alex Johnson (@MAlexJohnson) July 12, 2015
I have been wondering about Yuniesky Betancourt and all of his baseball comrades for ages - thanks for the Olbermann link!
Posted by: Jessica | July 16, 2015 at 07:17 AM
It took me a sec to get the sushi joke. Very good!
Posted by: mike | July 16, 2015 at 10:14 AM