South End of a Chicken - 28 January 2013

<p>Are your nightstand books all over the place? Why not stack 'em into a bookmash? A bookmash is a kind of found poetry formed from book titles! And we all know that honesty is the best policy. But does that mean you should correct the grammar of your daughter's teacher? Plus, texting lingo in everyday speech, the proper use of the word "penultimate," and what it means to have the south end of a chicken flying north. And what's up with pedantic gentlemen having to mansplain everything? <br /><br />FULL DETAILS<br /><br />Go to your nightstand, stack your books with the spines facing out, and what do you get? It's a bookmash. This new kind of found poetry popped up on Stan Carey's blog Sentence First, with this collection of titles: Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes/ Bugs/ Creatures of The Earth/ In The Shadow of Man. Send us a photo of your bookmash!<br /><br />If a fellow thinks he's a hotter than he really is, he'd be known in the South as a dirt road sport. This term's been defined as "a country boy showing off in a Saturday afternoon town," and refers to someone reaching beyond his station in life, perhaps by spending beyond his means and making a show of it. If there's a dirt road sport in your life, we'd love to hear some stories!<br /><br />Do you say the terms NBD, LOL, or BRB in everyday speech? It sounds strange to hear text lingo spoken aloud, but with all language, it's only weird until it becomes the norm, and then we wonder how we did without it. That said, most of these initialisms, like BFF, go back farther than text messaging, so don't blame kids these days!<br /><br />That fatty bump at the end of a turkey or a chicken, known as the pope's nose, is also called the south end of a northbound chicken. <br /><br />Our Quiz Guy John Chaneski has a special twist on the "Change One Letter" game. For this one, change one letter in a word to make it fit twice in a sentence. For example, fill in these blanks: Dear ______ Brown, lay off the candy bars in the confessional or you'll only get _____. Have the ans