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Everything filed under language.
Fact-based Word Journeys
English and Spanish say tea and té, Russian says chai, and all three are the same Chinese word, split in two by whether it travelled west on a ship or on the back of a camel.
Fact-based Cosmic Questions
A cat can find one instantly, it holds a plate perfectly well, and the moment you get out of the chair it is simply not anywhere.
Fact-based Weird Facts
The dot over a lowercase i or j has its own name, it began as a handwriting helper in medieval manuscripts, and it may be hiding inside the phrase to a T.
Fact-based Cosmic Questions
There is no official height at which a bump becomes a hill, and philosophers have a 2,000-year-old name for why that line is so hard to draw.
Fiction Made-Up Words
(n.) The serene confidence with which you carry a full takeaway cup whose lid you have not actually checked.
Fiction Made-Up Words
(n.) The blank half-second at a door you have used a thousand times, in which you have no idea whether it pushes or pulls.
Fiction Made-Up Words
(n.) The pause with your hand already in the hedge, spent deciding that the blackberry you can reach is not the one you deserve.
Fiction Made-Up Words
(n.) The third reheating of a drink you have no real intention of finishing.
Fiction Made-Up Words
(n.) The small mercy by which a pen you have just proven to be dead is returned to the pot rather than the bin.
Fiction Made-Up Words
(n.) The deliberately slowed walk you adopt on an otherwise empty pavement so that you never have to overtake the stranger ahead of you.