I was on a train in Italy, and I needed to pee in any language available.

Railroad crossing

I could have been an engineer, you know.

I’m surely a product of Gen X hustle culture.

I started learning some time well before I could read.

I used to think if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the president or the pope or a .400 baseball hitter.

Imagine that you live in a world where magic exists.

It’s 1938, and you work for DuPont.

Practicing to perform better is an interesting standalone concept.

After writing about language consistently for a few years now, I’ve started to notice more and more coincidences.

Odes are fun.

Watching TV was a no-no activity.

Did you know that dung beetles have an easy time getting around at night?

I was introduced to the poetry of Allen Ginsberg around the same time I was introduced to Snow Crash.

You know the tattoo I’m talking about.

When I was Young Andrew, New Year’s Eve was always special.

Here’s a simple question: who’s the intended audience of a dad joke?

Go to Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia, SC, and you’ll see a wide variety of animals in habitats designed to mimic the natural homes of these majestic beasts.

Michael Bolton famously does not appreciate Michael Bolton.

It’s August 28th, 1997.

In 1962, Europe had beef with chicken.

You wake up and rub your eyes.

I’m listening to her words in real time.

Amazon (dot com) seemed to spring up from out of nowhere during the days of the early internet. If you’re only familiar with today’s multi-trillion dollar company, it might surprise you that the websi...

The term bank holiday seems quaint, and in its original sense, it really was.

The origin of the word science is well documented.

Things were looking dire for the US government in 1861.

It is both a blessing and a curse to have high-fidelity memory.

If you zoom out from today and take a scenic overview of humanity, Gutenberg’s printing press has to be one of the most important ideas ever brought to life.

You hear a lot of analogies about the human body.

Phrases containing dogs are common—a testament to how cool and important dogs are to us.

Ever play with dominoes as a kid?

All my life, I’ve understood the value of saving.

Cassius Clay was named after his father, who was himself named after a prominent abolitionist from the pre-Civil War period (the antebellum, if you want to get fancy).

Wait until it’s nighttime, and go look out there at the sky.

Let’s zoom into the word commodity for a moment.

Nothing to see here, folks!

It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better.

I’m listening to Revolver right now by the Beatles.

Last night as I was falling asleep, I was thinking of Sumer.

We have to start with the terminology on this one.

The philosophy that governed startups in the mid-2000s came to be called move fast, break things.

Superman and I go way back.

Oh, look!

Rigor mortis has set in!

In 1959, the Netherlands discovered enormous reserves of natural gas.

No Stairway?!?

There’s a whole family of euphemisms that mean go away and leave me alone.