Wordwizard

"Flora of the Moors: A Vegetarian's Guide," by the Bronte Soeurs

Very funny, guys. But I meant DINOSAUR ones. "Try Sarah Topps" may be the only DINOSAUR one.

Good one, Bobinwales. I want to come up with some others, but this may be the only one!

Stevenloan, I think you've used the phrase perfectly in your coffee example. Like tony h says, when something beats something else by a very small margin, it's called "a close second." There are bunches of idioms to describe a very close finish between competitors: beaten by a hair/nose; a photo-fin...

. . . whether the expression comes across as pretentious is dependent partly on who is saying it, in what context and with what intention. Indeed. Late to the party once again, I still must add my two cents: "au contraire, mon frere" is nothing but cool when Bart Simpson says it. I have a memory of...

I've always heard the expression as, ". . . slipped through one's fingers." This version shows up on a google search as an idiom.
Of course, Paul Simon would have it both ways: Y'know, the nearer your destination, the more you're slip sliding away.

Hi azz. I don't find (a) to be ambiguous. It might be ambiguous if you were speaking the two words: a person might hear "poorhouse." On paper, though, I take "poor house" to simply mean badly built, rundown, or otherwise not up to standard. I might use a more specific word to describe a structure's ...

In my book, the display on the wall above the shelves is called "signage." So, in current slang (as trolley has pointed out) I would call this a "signage fail." On the other hand, since the stuff on the shelves is moveable, and the sign(age) above is less so, this could be called an assistant manage...

Erik_Kowal wrote: ↑Wed Mar 20, 2019 7:21 amAnd that would definitely be a mistake.

It's why I come here: to incur wrath and commit preemptive occurences of reality. Ok -- I get it, Phil ------ nix-on the super-fluous-dashes.

Tony h, you can view a YouTube video of Red Skelton's work at the United Nations by googling "Red Skelton pantomime." Oh never mind -- let me just do it for you. Enjoy!
Unfortunately, you have to tolerate a few minutes of vintage TV commercials.

Stevenloan, the phrase "social awareness" is too broad to describe just what this person is lacking. Chiefly, he lacks any respect for the labor, time, and cost that others have put into laying the pavement, which indicates he has some "antisocial personality disorder." (That's what the docs say now...

It's correct to say he's a frigging idiot.

So, a mistake could be called a premonition of truth? A preemptive fact? One thing life has taught me: all my worst mistakes will be revealed at the worst possible moment. Count on it. I don't really mind seeing the emojis/smilies in my screen -- I just hesitate to choose them over the old keyboard ...

No linguistic scholarship here, just a beautiful novel about some folks trying to make it in 19th century America. I had never read anything by Sebastian Barry before, and judged this book by its cover at a free book exchange event. Barry is henceforth on my list of "go to" authors (meaning, I go to...

Thanks for that link, Erik. Takes me back to the "Master and Margarita" days, my first book read in its entirety without turning a single page. I've read a few books on my computer since then, but I still prefer books with paper pages to flip through, highlight, dog-ear, annotate, and otherwise abus...