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"Grammar Geekery" - A Washington Post Column Written by Bill Walsh


DonRocks

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"Nibs" as a mock honorific:

Instead of "cocoa nibs," which is what we're used to hearing in the restaurant world, an earlier use is a mocking form of "royal highness," as in "Yes, your nibs!"

An example from the Pilot episode of "Cheers" (1982), after Ted Danson tells Rhea Perlman that Shelley Long doesn't wish to be disturbed:

Screenshot 2018-07-20 at 11.28.16.png

Interestingly, this episode - now 36 years old - also uses the world "cur," which means "mongrel," when Long is describing Perlman's husband who left her. I'm almost positive that Shakespeare used this word, but I haven't heard it used in conversation in decades, and even then it was a sarcastic usage:

Screenshot 2018-07-20 at 11.52.13.png

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