Fast Friends at Lake Bde Maka Ska (Lake Calhoun) About a zillion years ago at The Punchline nightclub in San Francisco, I heard a hilarious bit by (a then unknown) Rob Schneider recounting the various usages of the word “Dude.” As in . . . #1. Greeting (“Dude!”); #2. Approval (“Du-u-u-de!”, upbeat); #3. Disapproval (“d-u-d-e,” in a low tone);...Read More

Slang vs. Literal According to Urban Dictionary, the slang meaning of “taking someone to school” is, “beating someone in a competition badly and thereby teaching them how it’s really done.” Ahh, but what if that someone is your 18 year-old son, and you really ARE “taking him to school” — in this case, to college halfway across the...Read More

“You Say To-may-toe, I Say To-mah-toe” (sort of) If there’s such as thing as “California closets” (there is), why can’t there be “Florida ceilings?” At least, that’s what my now-12 year old daughter used to think. Geographic Adjectives; “Do-I-Haf-Ta?!?” It turns out that what she mistook for “Florida” was actually “floor to, presumably as in “floor-to-ceiling windows,” “floor-to-ceiling...Read More