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truthiness (paid)

  • Dave Wilton

Dave Wilton

14 Mar 2025 • 3 min read
Still image of Stephen Colbert sitting behind a desk with a Chyron that reads, “The Wørd: Truthiness”

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Movie poster depicting actor Martin Freeman, playing the hobbit Bilbo Baggins, holding a sword

hobbit

10 December 2025 In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. So begins J. R. R. Tolkien’s 1937 novel The Hobbit. A hobbit, as anyone who doesn’t live in a hole in the ground knows, is a small humanoid creature with hairy feet and a fondness
10 Dec 2025 5 min read
B&W photo of a Black man standing under a sign that reads, “Colored Waiting Room”; a bus is in the background
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race / racism (paid)

10 Dec 2025 13 min read
Photo of a clockface bearing astrological symbols

woo-woo

8 December 2025 Ghosts, magic crystals, faeries, homeopathy, Bigfoot, astrology, and the like are all examples of woo-woo or woo. But why are they called that? When and where does the term come from? The Oxford English Dictionary and Green’s Dictionary of Slang both say that woo-woo is onomatopoeia
08 Dec 2025 3 min read
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