Stories: Not region-specific

Stories connected to Not region-specific.

On the map. Not in the sea.Phantom islands appeared in charts or reports but were later found not to exist. Misidentification and errors…
The calendar needed a better leap-year rule.Introduced in 1582, the Gregorian calendar adjusted leap years to keep calendar dates closer to the seasons.…
Learn a word yesterday. See it everywhere today.Frequency illusion is the sense that something newly noticed is suddenly appearing often. Selective attention…
The boundary between one date and the next.The International Date Line crosses the Pacific near 180 degrees longitude, bending around territories and is…
One word, opposite meanings.A contronym has opposing senses. English clip can refer to attaching something or cutting something off.
The next round uses a different kind of defence.Chess boxing alternates rounds of chess and boxing. The same contest asks competitors to handle both the boar…
All that adventure. To iron a shirt.Extreme ironing takes an ironing board to unusual or challenging locations and combines an outdoor adventure…
Before electronic mail, mail moved through air tubes.Pneumatic systems send carriers through pipes using air pressure. They transported papers and money, and stil…
A coffin designed to call for help.Safety coffins incorporated devices intended to signal that a buried person was still alive. They reflected f…
A jellyfish that can return to an earlier life stage.Turritopsis dohrnii can revert from the mature jellyfish stage to a polyp stage. That does not make it immune…
A beetle with a hot chemical defence.Bombardier beetles can eject a hot, irritating chemical spray when disturbed.
A finished book gets another journey.BookCrossing lets readers register books and pass them on or leave them for others to find. Their travels can…
That gap may be small. The octopus is flexible.An octopus can radically change its soft body’s shape and squeeze through narrow spaces.
Your ordinary street may hide a treasure hunt.Geocaching uses coordinates to guide players to hidden containers. Finders usually record their visit and put…
Mantis shrimp come with different weapons.Some mantis shrimp strike with club-like appendages; others impale prey with spear-like structures.
The shipping revolution started with a standard box.Containerization lets the same standardized container transfer between ships, trains and trucks without repea…
A conversation carried by whistling.Whistled languages encode features of spoken language in whistles. Some are used to communicate across distan…
A roll of snow, with no person behind it.Snow rollers form naturally when conditions allow wind or other forces to roll snow into cylindrical shapes.…
It looks mould-like. It is not ordinary fungus.Slime moulds were once grouped with fungi, but are now placed in different lineages. Similar appearances need…
A solar storm disrupted the telegraph age.The powerful geomagnetic storm of 1859 affected telegraph systems and produced auroras at unusually low latit…
A Roman object without an agreed purpose.Small Roman dodecahedra with holes and knobs have been found across former imperial territory. Their intended…
Not reflected light. Light made by life.Bioluminescence produces light through chemical reactions in living organisms, from marine animals to some fu…
Bread. Stapled. To trees. That's the entire community.An online community collects photos of bread stapled to trees. Its core rules require actual bread, actual st…
A skull can mean “that's hilarious.”In English-speaking online culture, the skull emoji can stand for “I'm dead”—short for dying of laughter. Som…
An amphipod can reach 34 centimeters.Most amphipods are small crustaceans. The deep-sea Alicella gigantea, however, has been recorded at up to abo…
A Game Boy accessory measured blood sugar.Glucoboy was a removable blood-glucose monitor for the Game Boy Advance. Designed for children with diabetes,…
The developers shared their pirate game for free.When Pixel Piracy entered early access in 2013, its makers also released a free torrent. Their reasoning was…
For a free PC test, shoot down 13 ships.UserBenchmark used a 3D CAPTCHA minigame for free testing slots during busy periods. Users had to shoot down…
“Release the game!” “Give us 10 to 20 minutes.”When a Steam user pushed for Door Kickers 2's release, a developer replied that it would take 10 to 20 minute…
Male chimaeras have a head clasp. They can tuck it away.Male chimaeras, a group of cartilaginous fish, have a tooth-bearing structure on top of the head. It helps gr…
That big sunflower 'flower'? It's many tiny flowers together.The round head of a sunflower is an inflorescence: numerous small florets clustered so tightly that they look…
A scorpion fossil is hundreds of millions of years old. Its shape looks strikingly familiar.The extinct scorpion genus Eoscorpius lived from the Early Carboniferous into the Early Permian. Its fossils…
Ad companies can match their user IDs. Some tracking can resist deletion.Cookie syncing lets advertising parties connect separate identifiers for the same browser. Research notes tha…
From sunset to sunrise on Venus: days. About 58 Earth days of them.Venus rotates slowly and in the opposite direction to Earth. At a given location, night lasts just over 58 Ea…
A sea cucumber walks the seabed. A young crab shelters underneath.Deep-sea Scotoplanes, nicknamed sea pigs, move on enlarged tube feet. Juvenile crabs have been observed shelt…
Drug tests at chess tournaments. The evidence came years later.The international chess federation began drug testing at events in 2001 while the effect of performance-enhan…
The sun sets, but stored heat remains. Molten salt and sand can hold it.Concentrated solar power first turns sunlight into heat. That heat can be stored in molten salts or a solid m…
The hero already saved the world. What can the sequel threaten next?In series fiction, later installments may face pressure to raise the scale of dangers a hero must overcome. S…
The aquarium fish is called a black molly. Its family tree is not so simple.Black mollies are often described as a form of one species, but early breeders crossed several kinds of molly…
Classical logic has a surprising problem when a claim and its denial are both assumed.Under the principle of explosion, classical inference rules allow any unrelated conclusion from a proposition…
No other month in the same year starts on June's weekday.In the Gregorian calendar, the weekday on which June begins is unique among that year's months. If June 1 is…
A cartoon fandom even developed its own names for styles of music.Fans of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic have made large amounts of music inspired by the show. Community…
Some of fungi's closest relatives look like tiny amoebas.Nucleariids are free-living single-celled organisms. Molecular studies place them among the closest relatives…
That statue-like bird is watching for fishThe shoebill lives in African swamps and often stands almost motionless while hunting. It finds prey by sight…
Even @#$% has a nameA jumble of symbols replacing profanity in a comic is called a grawlix. The characters need not form a pronou…
A bird that spends the day as a branchPotoos hunt insects at night in tropical America. By day they perch upright, using their patterned plumage to…
That bracelet may be made from hairMourning jewellery became especially popular in the nineteenth century. Some pieces incorporated a deceased p…
Three little stars make this mark: ⁂An asterism is a triangle of three asterisks. In typography it has served as a separator between passages, am…
A shark whose jaws reach out from its faceThe goblin shark usually holds its jaws beneath its head. During feeding, they can extend dramatically toward…
The insertion mark is named for what is lackingA proofreader’s caret shows where extra text should be inserted. Its name comes from a Latin word meaning tha…
Change the font, and a letter becomes scissorsDingbats are typographic ornaments and symbols. Older symbol fonts placed shapes at positions normally used f…
The old intercom began with a whistleSpeaking tubes carried voices through pipes. In versions with a removable whistle, blowing into one end summo…
An old text can survive beneath a newer oneA palimpsest is a manuscript page whose earlier writing was removed so the material could be reused. Expensiv…
A butterfly you can see throughGreta oto, the glasswing butterfly, occurs in Central and South America. Much of each wing is transparent, wi…
Butter began with a lot of movementA butter churn turns cream into butter through mechanical agitation. Historical designs used plunging poles o…
The next page’s first word was already hereA catchword at the foot of a page anticipates the first word on the following page. In manuscripts and early…
After the story, a note about paper and typeA colophon records details of a book’s publication or manufacture. Some include the paper, ink, typefaces and…
A and V may need to get closerKerning adjusts spacing for particular pairs of letters. Shapes such as A and V can leave an awkward-looking…
Some snakes glide while wriggling in the airFlying snakes of the genus Chrysopelea can glide between trees. They flatten their bodies and make side-to-si…
A letter could finish with a dusting of powderPounce was a fine powder used to dry ink and prepare writing surfaces. Some nineteenth-century pots had a sha…
That single ﬁ shape contains two lettersA ligature combines two or more letters into one glyph. In the familiar ﬁ example, f and i share a shape. Suc…
Everyone agrees, yet nobody really wants itThe Abilene paradox describes a group choosing an action that its members do not actually prefer. Each person…
A task can grow to fill its deadlineParkinson’s Law is the observation that work can expand to occupy the time available for it. A generous deadl…
The mopane worm is a moth caterpillarThe edible mopane worm of southern Africa is the caterpillar of the moth Gonimbrasia belina. It feeds mainly…
Success at one job does not guarantee success at the nextThe Peter principle describes promotion based on success in a previous role until a person reaches work they…
The bike shed can get more discussion than the big projectThe law of triviality describes disproportionate attention to minor, understandable issues. Its fictional com…
Your own folded paper can look more valuableThe IKEA effect describes people valuing things more after helping make them. Experiments included origami, w…
A spider builds a room full of air below the surfaceThe diving bell spider constructs an underwater web chamber and carries air to it using water-repellent hairs…
A scale can seem to climb without getting anywhereA sequence of Shepard tones can seem to rise endlessly. Tones an octave apart are combined, with their relati…
A building can be designed to annoy the neighborA spite house is built or altered to irritate someone, for example by blocking light or access. Its shape can…
The fuzz on this deep-sea worm is a colony of bacteriaThe Pompeii worm, Alvinella pompejana, lives near deep-sea hydrothermal vents. Its hairy-looking back is cove…
Listeners can disagree about the same two tonesThe tritone paradox uses two specially constructed tones a half-octave apart. One listener may hear an ascent…
It hovers at flowers, but it is not a hummingbirdThe hummingbird hawk-moth hovers while drinking nectar through its long proboscis. Found across Eurasia, it f…
The mouth you see can change the syllable you hearIn the McGurk effect, a mismatch between spoken audio and visible mouth movements can produce a different per…
A furry-looking crustacean acquired a mountain monster’s nameKiwa hirsuta was discovered in the deep South Pacific in 2005. Numerous silky setae cover its legs and claws,…
Repeating a spoken phrase can make it sound musicalRepeated playback of a short spoken phrase can make it seem sung, even though the recording itself has not ch…
A popcorn-like smell has an unexpected sourceBinturongs are associated with a popcorn-like odor. Their urine contains 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, a compound als…
One country could send several Olympic tug-of-war teamsTug of war appeared at the Summer Olympics held between 1900 and 1920. Club teams competed, and a country cou…
A missing low component can still shape what you hearA set of overtones can produce the perception of a fundamental pitch even when that frequency is absent from…
The larva throws sand at prey trying to climb outSome antlion larvae wait at the bottom of funnel-shaped sand pits. When prey tries to climb out, the larva th…
Some people feared that their bodies were made of glassEuropean records from the late medieval and early modern periods describe people convinced that their bodies…
Chocolate carries the letters of cocoa inside itA kangaroo word contains a synonym or closely related word whose letters appear in the same order. Chocolate,…
A larva carries a little shelter of stones and leavesMany caddisfly larvae construct silk tubes reinforced with material such as sand, stones or leaf pieces. The…
English is itself an English wordAn autological word has the property it names: English is English, and word is a word. By contrast, monosylla…
The players aim for a goal while riding bicyclesCycle ball resembles football played on bicycles. Teams of two control the ball with the bicycle or the head,…
Some old books contained rotating paper calculatorsA volvelle uses rotating paper components to align information. Early examples appeared in astronomy books, h…
A word invented for one occasion has its own labelA nonce word is created for a particular occasion or utterance. Such words appear in jokes, poetry and langua…
Chess can begin with a randomized back rankChess960 randomizes the back-rank pieces subject to rules: bishops occupy opposite-colored squares, and the k…
Worker ants use their larvae’s silk to join leavesWeaver-ant workers pull leaf edges together, sometimes linking their bodies into chains to span a gap. Other…
Two streams of slime cross into a trapping netVelvet worms eject adhesive slime from openings on either side of the head. Oscillating streams cross in the…
I mean can help organize speech, not just define meaningExpressions such as I mean and well can manage the flow of English conversation. These discourse markers may…
A gelatin dish can contain meat rather than dessertAspic is a savory gelatin made with stock or broth, often molded around meat, seafood, vegetables or eggs. It…
A boot jack is for removing boots, not putting them onA boot jack grips a boot’s heel while the other foot holds the device down. It lets the wearer withdraw a foo…
Sugar once needed a sturdy cutting toolBefore granulated and cube sugar became widespread, households bought sugarloaves or parts of them. Sugar nip…
Rye bread can become an ingredient in kvassKvass is a sweet-sour fermented cereal beverage. Traditional versions use rye bread or rye flour and malt, an…
The ending can change how the beginning is understoodA paraprosdokian ends a sentence or passage in an unexpected way that makes the listener reinterpret its earl…
The same wording can return with a different meaningAntanaclasis repeats a word or phrase in two different senses. It is a kind of pun often used in slogans. The…
A familiar line can keep its shape with new wordsA snowclone adapts a familiar phrase template by replacing selected words. X is the new Y is a common English…
A giant water lily’s flower changes around its visiting beetlesVictoria amazonica attracts beetles with a white flower and a fruity scent. The flower closes around the visi…
Spinning machinery kept the vehicle uprightA gyro monorail used gyroscopic action from spinning wheels to balance a vehicle on a single rail. Full-scale…
Short headlines can point readers toward the wrong meaningEnglish headlines often omit small grammatical words, creating structural ambiguity. Such headlines are calle…
Wet fingers play the rims of rotating bowlsBenjamin Franklin’s glass harmonica mounted glass bowls horizontally on a rotating spindle. The player touche…
Replacing your own word can strengthen the statementEpanorthosis is immediate, emphatic self-correction. A speaker might replace a quantity with a larger one to…
A hand-cranked wheel rubs the stringsA hurdy-gurdy uses a hand-cranked, rosined wheel to rub strings and produce sound. A keyboard changes the pit…
Flour and flower share a pronunciationEnglish flour and flower have different spellings and meanings but the same pronunciation. They are homophone…
A repeated word links one clause to the nextAnadiplosis repeats the final word of one clause at the beginning of the following clause. The repetition can…
A fashionable skirt made long steps difficultThe hobble skirt, whose popularity peaked around 1908–1914, had a hem narrow enough to impede the wearer’s st…
The next phrase can reverse the first phrase’s patternChiasmus reverses grammatical structures across successive phrases or clauses. Related meanings can form a cr…
A hidden frame shaped the back of a skirtA bustle was a padded support or wire frame worn behind the waist under a nineteenth-century dress. It suppor…
Not bad can mean considerably better than mediocreLitotes can affirm a positive point through a negative expression. English not bad may mean mediocre or excel…
And can join parts of a single meaningHendiadys expresses one idea through two coordinated expressions joined by and, replacing a relationship such…
Apron once carried an n at its own beginningEnglish apron developed from Middle English napron. The sequence a napron was reinterpreted as an apron, shif…
The lenses stayed in the hand rather than on the earsA lorgnette is a pair of spectacle lenses mounted on a handle. The user holds it in place instead of wearing…
Old words can survive inside familiar expressionsA fossil word is broadly obsolete in ordinary use but remains within an idiom or set phrase. English kith in…
Pins turned a billiards-like game into another kind of playBagatelle sends balls past pin obstacles toward holes in a table. A variant with fixed metal pins helped lead…
These glasses have no arms over the earsPince-nez glasses stay in place by pinching the bridge of the nose, without earpieces. Popular in the late ni…
Edit was formed from editorEnglish edit is an example of back-formation from editor. A shorter word can be created by removing what is i…
A European home garment borrowed from kimono formsThe banyan worn in late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe was influenced by Japanese kimono brought…
Gorilla gorilla is not a typing errorA tautonym repeats the same word in the genus name and species epithet, as in Gorilla gorilla. Such names are…
Ankle covers served both protection and styleHistorical spats buttoned around the ankle and covered the instep. Made from materials such as cloth or felt,…
A person’s name can become a thing’s nameAn eponym is a person or thing that supplies another name. John Montagu, Earl of Sandwich, is an example asso…
Went originally belonged to a different verbEnglish go uses went as its past tense, but went came from the past tense of wend. This is a case of suppleti…
Nearby sounds can make a spoken form shorterHaplology reduces a syllable or part of one near a similar sound. The colloquial shortening of English librar…
Each step must still be a wordA word ladder connects a starting word to a target by changing one letter at each step, with every intermedia…
Lighting a fire once involved a kitA tinderbox stored items such as flint, firesteel and tinder for kindling a fire. The container kept the nece…
Bird developed from Old English briddEnglish bird developed from Old English bridd through a change involving the order of sounds. Such rearrangem…
Everyone builds and rebuilds a word grid at onceIn Bananagrams, players simultaneously arrange letter tiles into their own connected word grids. They may rea…
High and low can include the places betweenSearching high and low means searching everywhere, not ignoring medium heights. It illustrates merism, where…
The bird drops large bones onto rocksBearded vultures feed heavily on bones and marrow. Bones too large to swallow can be carried into the air and…
An old snuffer could maintain a burning wickBefore the mid-nineteenth century, snuffer could mean a scissors-like tool for trimming a candle’s wick witho…
Free gift can repeat part of the meaningThe expression free gift is an example of semantic overlap, since a gift is ordinarily free. Such redundancy…
The telephone table acquired its own chairA gossip bench combines a chair with a small side table for a telephone. Some included storage for a director…
Disheveled does not come with a normal sheveledThe English word disheveled appears to offer an opposite if dis is removed, but sheveled is not an attested o…
A piranha relative is largely a plant eaterFish known as pacu are related to piranhas but have squarer, straighter teeth and mainly eat plant material.…
Gift changes meaning across the language boundaryEnglish gift means a present, while German Gift means poison. This is a false-friend pairing: similar-looking…
The fainting explanation lacks historical supportThe claim that so-called fainting couches were made for women collapsing in tight corsets lacks historical su…
A bee and the letter n can represent beenA rebus combines pictures and letters to represent words or phrases. In an English example, a bee picture sup…
Pieces follow a connected network of linesAlquerque places pieces at intersections of lines, including diagonal connections. Captures jump an adjacent…
A lever can move a small rail vehicleA handcar is powered by its passengers or by people pushing it. A typical version uses a seesaw-like walking…
Dermatoglyphics repeats none of its lettersThe English word dermatoglyphics uses fifteen letters without repeating one. Such words are called heterogram…
The figures on the pieces affect capturesRithmomachia is a mathematical board game with descriptions dating to the eleventh century. Most capture meth…
Silly once carried happier meaningsEnglish silly shifted from senses of happiness and good fortune toward foolishness. The development of a nega…
Jerboas do not switch to front-leg walking at slow speedsJerboas have long hind legs and small forelegs. They move almost exclusively on two legs, rather than using t…
Much and mucho did not come from the same rootEnglish much and Spanish mucho look and mean something similar, but derive from different roots. Such false c…
The apparent petals belong to a predatorThe orchid mantis has white or pink coloration and flattened, petal-like limbs. Its resemblance to flowers ca…
The pupil is neither round nor a simple slitCuttlefish have large W-shaped pupils. Their eyes offer a distinctive detail alongside the better-known chang…
The snapping jaws can fling the ant backwardOdontomachus ants have large jaws that snap shut rapidly. Besides handling prey, the jaws have been observed…
App can shorten appetizer as well as applicationEnglish app can be a clipped form of appetizer or application. Shortening different words may bring them to a…
The ending can depart from the grammar of the startAnacoluthon interrupts a sentence’s expected structure, continuing in a different grammatical pattern. It occ…
Oxymoron itself joins sharp and dullBittersweet combines opposing meanings. The term oxymoron describes such a combination and itself derives fro…
The male inflates its own bright pouchThe male magnificent frigatebird has a red throat pouch that it inflates to attract a mate. Against dark plum…
Changing English word order changes the spotlightAnastrophe departs from ordinary word order, for example by putting an object before the subject and verb. In…
Wheels can mean an automobileEnglish wheels can refer to an entire automobile. The name of a component stands for the whole vehicle. Synec…
The disclaimer can introduce the subjectApophasis raises a subject while professing not to discuss it. A refusal to mention something can itself make…
Quiddity has more than one specialist senseIn scholastic philosophy, quiddity refers to an object’s essence or whatness. In legal use, it can mean a qui…
Four corners and a center make a quincunxThe five-spot on a die places four dots around one in the center. This quincunx pattern also appears on cards…
The four-part arrangement could matter more than accessHigh Medieval hortus conclusus gardens commonly used a central well or fountain and paths dividing the enclos…
The emphatic use is recorded in dictionariesEnglish literally normally signals a literal sense, but dictionaries also record its use to acknowledge nonli…
The orangery originally sheltered sensitive treesAn orangery historically protected orange and other non-hardy fruit trees during winter. The term can now als…
Hamster may acquire a transitional pEnglish hamster is often pronounced with an added p sound between the m and s. This is epenthesis, an inserti…
The icehouse stored cold rather than manufacturing itIcehouses stored winter ice from lakes or rivers with insulation such as straw or sawdust. The ice could rema…
A quodlibet combines familiar materialA quodlibet combines recognizable tunes or texts, either together or in succession, often for humorous effect…
Section signs can count the referencesThe section sign § is used to refer to a section of a document. The doubled form §§ can refer to multiple sec…
Tsetse larvae receive milk-like nourishmentA female tsetse fly develops one egg at a time inside her body. The larva hatches internally and receives nou…
№ joins an N with a small oThe numero sign № combines an N with a raised o and derives from Latin numero. English No. also serves as an…
Siphonophores are colonies with divided rolesA siphonophore can resemble a single elongated animal, but it is a colony of zooids. Differently formed units…
Horseshoe crabs belong to the cheliceratesDespite the common name, horseshoe crabs are not crustaceans. They belong to the chelicerates, the larger gro…
Woodlice carry developing young underneathFemale woodlice hold eggs in a pouch on the underside of the body. Newly hatched young also spend an initial…
Prime and double prime are distinct symbolsPrime ′ and double prime ″ resemble apostrophes or quotation marks but are distinct symbols. They have specia…
Leopard slugs have an unusual mating positionLimax maximus, commonly called the leopard slug, mates while a pair hangs from a thick mucus thread attached…
An anagram changes order while keeping the materialEnglish listen and silent contain the same letters in a different order. This rearrangement is an anagram. Tr…
Theremin performance uses the space around antennasA theremin player moves hands near two metal antennas without touching the instrument. One distance controls…
Nautilus vision resembles a pinhole arrangementNautiluses have eyes without a solid lens, using a pinhole-like structure open to the environment. Their visi…
Magic lanterns projected handmade picturesA magic lantern directed light through an illustrated glass slide and a lens onto a wall or screen. Early sli…
A pangram brings the whole alphabet into viewThe familiar English sentence about a quick brown fox jumping over a lazy dog includes every letter of the al…
A kazoo changes humming rather than mere breathA kazoo player hums into the instrument instead of simply blowing. Pressure changes from the voice vibrate a…
Peanut worms retract their narrow front sectionMarine sipunculans have a narrow anterior section called the introvert, with the mouth at its tip. They exten…
Gadsby keeps E out of more than fifty thousand wordsErnest Vincent Wright’s 1939 novel Gadsby uses over fifty thousand words without the letter E in its text. Co…
A musical saw is bowed rather than used to cutA musical saw is flexed for performance. Sound is commonly produced by drawing a bow across the back edge at…
A corporate email carried an acrosticIn a January 2010 email marking Sun’s acquisition by Oracle, Jonathan Schwartz arranged the first letters of…
Yellow boxfish move despite their stiff coveringYellow boxfish have a rigid, box-like carapace around the head and body, with openings for the mouth, fins an…
The symbol ə records a central vowelThe phonetic symbol ə is a rotated lowercase e. It represents a mid central vowel, with a reduced form known…
A mouth harp changes its overtones through the playerA mouth harp vibrates a tongue held within a frame, using the player’s mouth as a resonator. Changing the mou…
Aquatic bladderwort uses a tiny triggered doorActive traps of aquatic Utricularia hold lower pressure than the surrounding water. Contact with trigger hair…
Breeching marked a change in boys’ clothingIn parts of the Western world, young boys wore gowns or dresses before being put into breeches or trousers. T…
Long s belongs to older forms of printingThe character ſ, called long s, is an archaic form of lowercase s. In some typefaces it closely resembles f,…
Ginkgo’s fleshy exterior can mislead the eyeFemale ginkgo trees produce seed structures with a soft, fleshy outer section. Though they resemble small fru…
Baked Alaska combines opposing temperaturesBaked Alaska covers cake and ice cream with meringue. Brief heating browns the exterior without giving the ic…
Wolffia has flowers despite having no rootsWolffia plants float like small specks and have no roots. Their rarely seen flowers arise in a cavity on the…
Ditto marks repeat the words or figures aboveA ditto mark signals that words or figures from the line above are to be repeated. It is a shorthand rather t…
Coöperate displays a pronunciation reminderIn the spelling coöperate, the diaeresis signals separate vowels and the division co-op-er-ate. The unmarked…
Secretarybirds use their legs during the huntSecretarybirds mainly hunt on the ground, flushing prey from vegetation and striking with rapid blows of the…
An old dictionary gives apricity a seasonal senseThe old English word apricity concerns sunlight or solar warmth. A 1626 dictionary explained it as the sun’s…
Diabolo moves between sticks, string and airA diabolo spins on a string stretched between two handsticks. Performers can toss it into the air and catch i…
Devil-stick manipulation controls one baton indirectlyDevil-stick performance uses two handsticks to lift, strike or stroke a central baton. The main visible prop…
Bat-eared foxes have an unusual dietary emphasisBat-eared foxes specialize in insect feeding, with harvester termites sometimes making up most of their diet.…
Sesquipedalian demonstrates its own subjectEnglish sesquipedalian can describe long, polysyllabic words or a style given to using them. The term itself…
Contact manipulation rolls objects over the bodyContact juggling focuses on objects such as balls moving while in contact with the body. They roll over hands…
Floccinaucinihilipilification names an act of dismissalThe twenty-nine-letter English word floccinaucinihilipilification describes treating something as unimportant…
A Cyr wheel uses one large circleA Cyr wheel is a single large metal ring slightly taller than its performer. Standing inside and holding the…