Fritinancy

3 min read 2022-01-03 21:15:00

Word of the week: Socialite

How to succinctly describe Ghislaine Noelle Marion Maxwell, the French-born, UK–reared former associate of financier Jeffrey Epstein (1953–2019)

6 min read 2021-12-23 21:25:00

Happy Festivus, the holiday for the rest of us! When you’ve completed the traditional Feats of Strength you may feel like you deserve a celebratory

2 min read 2021-12-20 21:20:00

Once again, as in days of yore, I turn to this peerless portmanteau to evoke the spirit of the season: eager anticipation followed by crushing

5 min read 2021-12-16 21:21:00

Covid-19 turned into Covid 2021, the U.S. presidency changed hands despite TFG’s efforts to the contrary, and we somehow summoned the energy to

5 min read 2021-12-16 21:21:00

Covid-19 turned into Covid 2021, the U.S. presidency changed hands despite TFG’s efforts to the contrary, and we somehow summoned the energy to

4 min read 2021-12-13 22:33:27

I’d never encountered the term drip pricing before last week, but I’m familiar withwhat it describes, and you may be, too. Here’s how Los

4 min read 2021-12-09 21:10:00

The “disaster comedy” Don’t Look Up opens December 10 in theaters and comes to Netflix on December 24. Directed by Adam McKay (Vice, The Big

3 min read 2021-12-06 22:32:41

I was as surprised as Language Hat (Stephen Dodson) to learn that balk may be acquiring a new meaning that’s pretty much the opposite of the

3 min read 2021-12-03 21:00:00

Its best-known brand is Square, the payment app that launched in 2009 and whose fortunes soared during the 2020 pandemic as more retailers began

4 min read 2021-12-01 21:00:00

He lived 91 richly productive years, attended a live theater production eleven days before he died, enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner with friends the day

2 min read 2021-11-29 21:00:00

Were you one of the thousands of people who, at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, decided to learn a new language? Well, congratulations:

1 min read 2021-11-24 21:00:00

Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate, and happy fourth week of November to everyone else. My book recommendation this month is The Confidence

1 min read 2021-11-20 22:00:23

For my latest Visual Thesaurus column I’m celebrating Noirvember—the monthlong tribute to film noir—with a lineup of classic noir slang. The

1 min read 2021-11-15 21:00:00

Revenge dress was all over the celebrity/entertainment news last week, capping a year notable for its revenge compounds. On November 8, photos from

1 min read 2021-11-11 21:00:00

Throwback Thursday! Remember when I first wrote about an ad that used the catchphrase “… said no one ever”? It was in February 2016; here’s