What Does 'Zhuzh' Mean (and Why Is It So Hard to Spell)?

I was thinking about the consonant sound /ʒ/ recently. You know, it’s the sound that begins the final syllable in words such as “vision,” “fusion,” and “measure.” We also have it in words such as "usual” or “casual.” 

But English doesn’t like using this sound at the ends of words. I can think of a few, like “garage,” “mirage,” and “prestige.” Then we start getting into words that are used less frequently, such as “beige” (that tannish color), “rouge” (a kind of reddish makeup for your cheeks), “luge” (the winter Olympic sport), and “loge” (a special section of seats in a theater). There may be a few more, but they’re hard to bring to mind. And even the fairly familiar ones like “garage” sometimes end up with a more familiar “J” sound at the end. In the US Midwest, for example, “garage” is sometimes pronounced more like “grodge.”

The 'zh' sound is rare in English.

As for /ʒ/ at the beginnings of words, you might as well forget about it. There are some French names, such as Jacques (/ʒɑk/) and Jean (/ʒɑ̃n/), which Star Trek fans recognize in the name Jean-Luc Picard, and which fans of “Les Misérables” recognize in the name Jean Valjean. Then there’s the Russian name Zhivago, which I’ve only ever heard in the book and movie title “Doctor Zhivago.”

So I was surprised to learn about an English word that has the sound /ʒ/ not once, but twice, at the beginning and the end! The word is “zhuzh,” and the first place I heard it was in an episode of the podcast “A Way with Words.” A caller had been confused when his girlfriend saw him adjusting his hair and said he was “zhuzhing” it. The hosts Grant Barrett and Martha Barnett told him that this word goes back to the 1960s, and that it “seems to have arisen from secret lingo popular in parts of the gay community in the United Kingdom” at that time. They also mentioned a possible origin in the Romany word "zhouzho," which means to tidy something up. 

The Oxford English Dictionary gives a similar definition, with an earliest citation from 1977. It’s also in the Cambridge Dictionary, defined as “to make something more interesting or attractive by changing it slightly or adding something to it.” There’s also...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

Why Do We Say 'Cool Your Heels'?

Last week, I was standing around impatiently waiting for my morning coffee to drip through its filter, and I must have looked annoyed because my husband asked what I was doing, and I said, “I’m just cooling my heels waiting for this coffee.” And then we both started wondering where that phrase came from. What does it mean to cool your heels?

We thought there’d probably be some weird or fascinating story, but it turns out it’s actually about literally cooling your feet. When you walk for a long time, your feet get hot, and when you stop to rest, your feet cool down.

Cool Your Heels

The Oxford English Dictionary puts the first use in the year 1576, and at that time, it could also refer to horses. You could cool your heels, cool your feet, or your horse could cool its hooves. 

For example, here’s a line from a 1611 translation of “The Illiad”: “The soldiers all sat down enrank'd, each by his arms and horse That then lay down and cool'd their hoofs.”

Today it means to wait around, especially if someone is making you wait or the waiting is annoying for some reason. For example, if you’re stuck for hours in a doctor’s waiting room, you could be said to be cooling your heels. So it probably didn’t take my coffee long enough to drip through the filter that it justified me calling it cooling my heels! It should really be some kind of significant or disturbing wait, like when I gave my thesis defense and then had to wait for what seemed like forever for the committee to deliberate and decide that I had passed.

Cool Your Jets

There’s also a newer phrase, “cool your jets,” that arose in the United States in the 1970s. It has a different meaning. If someone tells you to cool your jets, they’re telling you to calm down or get less excited, and often it means they think you’re overreacting. I’d take it as kind of dismissive or as a put down if someone told me to cool my jets. It’s also often used in an extremely informal or slangy way. Here’s a funny example from a book that seems to take a lighthearted approach to advice for salespeople.

“Keep your mouth closed during any legal wrangling. We all know you are blessed and wonderful, but you ain’t a lawyer, bucko, so cool your jets.”

A lot of the examples in the Corpus of Contemporary American English also have that feel to them: Cool your jets, kid. Cool your jets, hotshot. Cool your jets, dude. And so on.

I couldn’t find anything to confirm the origin of “cool your jets,” but I...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

Grammar Quirks: Brian Panowich on Dialogue and Dialect

Grammar Girl: What’s your favorite word and why?

Brian Panowich: “Deddy.”

Not Daddy, or Dad, or Father, but Deddy. It’s so uniquely Georgian and doesn't sound funny or odd coming from the mouth of either a child or a woman or a full-grown man. It was, and still is, the spark of great debate on panels I’ve attended and at lectures of mine, because I intentionally use the misspelling in my books. At least the characters I write about from Georgia do. But dialect is integral to my writing so it’s a war I always win. Or at least I like to think so. Even if an academic-type tries to bombard me with reasons why I’m not allowed to abuse the rules of grammar or manipulate the English language anyway I choose, and believe me, I do get accused of that often, I know that just my arguing the point, makes my “Deddy” proud.

GG: What’s a word you dislike (either because it’s overused or misused) and why?

BP: “Furrowed” and “Pursed”

I’ve been guilty of using them both before, so I’m not claiming to be all-wise or perfect in any way. It’s also not because they are both overused—although they are. It’s because of this…

“He furrowed his brow as he looked over the documents.” Or “She pursed her lips while her husband spun more of his nonsense.”

Who talks like that?

I’ve never had anyone point out to me that my brow was furrowed or told not to purse my lips. I’ve had folks ask me, “What’s that face about?” or “I can tell by that look, you’re not down for all this.” But furrowing and pursing are lazy words to describe actions or expressions that the right bit of dialogue can handle much better. Those two words sound like “writing” and suck me right out of a story.

I’m going to throw in “zesty” too. Because no one on earth says the word zesty unless they are reading the side of a Cheez-it’s box.

“Wow, baby, this baked chicken and pasta you made tonight is really zesty….” Um, no.

GG: What word will you always misspell?

BP: Necessary.

It’s totally Nessi…Nesa…dammit…Necesaray…AGGGGGG…necessary…for me to spell that word wrong at least three or four times before I remember the dang “c”. That word lives in the broken part of my brain.

Learn the rules. Sit down in the chair. Forget the rules. And finish the damn thing.

GG: What word (or semblance of a word) would you like to see...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

How to Make Your Own Bath Bombs, Oils, and Salts

DIY Milk Bath

This soothing and exfoliating oatmeal bath smells like warm cookies. In a food processor, pulse together half of a cup of oats with three tablespoons of powdered milk, three tablespoons of baking soda, and a quarter teaspoon of ground cinnamon. Pour the powder into running bath water, and enjoy.

Relaxing Citrus Bath

Give yourself a luxurious bath treat without spending a cent. Just save the peels to citrus fruit like lemons, limes, and oranges in a container in your fridge. When it’s time for a bath, throw them in the warm water. They’ll not only release a lovely scent, they’ll help slough off dead skin cells.

Refreshing Green Tea Soak

Here’s an easy way to have a relaxing soak in a bath without having to buy bath salts. Just place one or two green tea bags under the faucet as you fill up your bath. The antioxidants in the tea will leave your skin feeling fresh.

How to Do an Oatmeal Bath at Home

Have you ever noticed that oatmeal is often a main ingredient of bath products? You have that very same oatmeal in your kitchen! Unfortunately, it’s not as easy as just throwing some into a hot bath. First, grind the oatmeal in a blender or coffee grinder to expose its inner skin-soothing qualities. Then place it in a piece of cheesecloth with a few drops of your favorite scented oil. While you’re running your bath, hold it under the faucet or tie it on with a bit of string. You’ll have a luxurious oatmeal bath, and even a little sachet you can use as a washcloth to help exfoliate your skin.

DIY Honey Lavender Bath

Good for soothing dry skin and relieving stress, this honey-lavender bath is quick and easy to make. Process two tablespoons of dried lavender in a food processor until it becomes a powder, and transfer it to a small bowl. Whisk in one cup of milk, a quarter cup of honey, and an optional three drops lavender essential oil until well combined. Pour the mixture into a hot bath, relax, and enjoy!

How to Make Your Own Bath Bombs

You’ve seen those fancy bath bombs in bath and body stores. Did you know you can easily make your own? You do need one hard-to-find ingredient, citric acid powder, which you can locate online or at some supermarkets in the canning section. (It’s what reacts with the baking soda to make that fizzy sound—kind of like those baking soda and vinegar volcanoes you’d make as a child.) This is a great winter craft because the bath bombs set up best on low-humidity days. Mix together one cup of citric acid,...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

Dating Icebreakers: How to Start the Conversation

Ringkasan ini tidak tersedia. Harap klik di sini untuk melihat postingan.

Connecting With Your Kids in a Tech-Filled World

Ask your child “how was your day?” and invariably you will be met with a monosyllabic grunt, offering you absolutely nothing in the way of information and very few details that could lead to a meaningful conversation. Throw in the distraction of a TV, tablet or smartphone screen and the situation goes from difficult to borderline impossible.

In today’s always-on world, kids under 14 now spend more time on their smartphones than they do talking to their parents. On average, a child will now spend 23 hours a week using personal devices but just 12 hours engaged in conversation with their family members [1]. Isn’t it ironic that in a world of screens and social media, technology purposefully designed to connect us with one another has become a conversational barrier within our own families?

Take a look at this picture…

No doubt this image depicts an all-too-familiar scene. Unfortunately, this is the reality of 21st-century dining dynamics—precious family time usurped by kids’ voracious appetite for tech over talk. For parents looking to use this time to emotionally connect with their kids, the stark reality is that the only connection their children are really interested in is the one with the Wi-Fi.

The stark reality is that the only connection children are really interested in is the one with the Wi-Fi.

From an emotional standpoint, this is naturally frustrating for parents. But unfortunately, it’s more than just family bonding time kids are losing out on when they're staring at screens over their spaghetti and meatballs (or the latest vegan equivalent). Research reveals a number of benefits to children who regularly participate in screen-free sit-down meals with their parents. Dr. Gail Saltz, clinical associate professor of psychiatry at the New York Presbyterian Hospital, says:

Children who have regular sit-down meals with their family are less likely to abuse drugs and alcohol or get pregnant as teenagers. They earn better grades. These benefits don’t accrue just because parents and children are munching carrots at the same time; they happen because the family is communicating [...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

Best Advice on Buying or Selling a Home During the Coronavirus Crisis

The coronavirus pandemic has made the logistics of buying and selling a home and moving more complicated, especially in hard-hit cities and communities. According to the National Association of Realtors, the number of homes for sale across the US continues to decline. Additionally, fewer potential buyers can or want to tour properties and risk contracting COVID-19.

The economic downturn—due to coronavirus stay-at-home mandates and social distancing—has resulted in pros and cons for both home buyers and sellers. I’ll cover advice to help both parties make wise real estate decisions during this uncertain time.

4 tips for home buyers during the coronavirus crisis

Since the coronavirus crisis began, more than 26 million Americans have filed for federal and state unemployment benefits. If you’ve lost part or all of your job or business income, and you’re unsure when your finances will return to normal, buying a home may not be the best idea.

But if your income is stable, you have cash in the bank, and you’re confident that you can stay in a home for at least five years, buying a home now might be a smart move. Here are four tips if you’re in the market to upsize, downsize, or become a first-time homeowner.

1. Evaluate your current and future budget

Buying a home is a significant financial commitment, so understanding how much you can afford is essential. If you’re at all worried about getting laid off or the future of your business, buying a home that’s under your budget is wise.

In addition to your mortgage payment, homeowners must cover many other expenses, including property taxes, home insurance, applicable association fees, and ongoing maintenance. Take a hard look at your income, expenses, and savings to make sure you have enough cash for closing and to keep a healthy emergency fund.

Take a hard look at your income, expenses, and savings to make sure you have enough cash for closing and to keep a healthy emergency fund.

Here are some ways to crunch your budget numbers:

• ...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

How to Get Groceries for Two Weeks in One Easy Trip

Nutrition Diva listener Kate writes:

I have been trying to shop only every 2 weeks, but I'm finding it almost impossible. How should I adjust my menu and shopping plan to avoid running out of food or ending up with odds and ends that don't really make a meal?

If you're used to stopping by the grocery store every few days, trying to think and shop for two weeks at a time may be a challenge. You may find that you're running out of certain things too soon, or struggling to use things before they spoil. Even for those who are used to planning and shopping ahead, the stakes suddenly feel higher. Running to the store for a forgotten item feels like a much bigger deal right now.

Planning menus for 14 days may feel completely overwhelming, but how else can you ensure you'll have the ingredients for all of those meals? And when you do mask up for that grocery store trip, chances are good that some of the items on your list won't be available. What then?

Coping with Covid-19 is requiring all of us to be a bit more flexible and resourceful. Your menus may not always be as varied as you're used to. Some or your meals may be a bit unconventional. Your go-to favorites may be in short supply. But there's no need to panic or throw in the towel on your family's nutrition

Here are a few strategies that can help you make the most out of fewer trips to the store. 

Tip #1: Do the math

If you're used to shopping every few days, you may find it hard to estimate how much milk or meat or produce your family actually eats over the course of two weeks. So, when planning a two week shop, start by calculating how many servings of each category of food you'll need per day for each person in the house.

For example, if you have four people in the house and your goal is to eat four servings of vegetables each day, you'll need 16 servings per day. If you're shopping for two weeks, that's 196 servings of vegetables.  

Here are some very general guidelines that you can adjust to fit your family's eating patterns:

• Vegetables: 4-5 servings per day per person
• Fruit: 2-3 servings per day per person
• Protein foods (such as eggs, fish, cottage cheese, peanut butter, meat, beans, or tofu): 2-3 servings per day per person
• Milk or nondairy alternatives (including yogurt and cheese): 1-3 servings per day per person
• Starches (such as cereal, bread, pasta, rice, or other grains) 2-4 servings per day per person

Next, use the total number of servings to estimate about how much of of each category you need by weight. Here,...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

Can You Tighten Loose Skin After Weight Loss?

If you’ve lost a lot of weight recently, then you may have noticed that you have a bit of loose skin hanging around. Common areas for extra skin after weight loss include under the arms, under the chin or a pouch around the stomach. But loose skin can appear almost anywhere on the body, especially if you have lost weight rapidly.

Before we go on, let’s start with a brief anatomy overview, from the outside in. First you have your skin, a nice protective layer and the largest organ of the integumentary (external layer or covering) system—think of it as the wrapper that holds your body. Then you have a layer of body fat. Under that is where your muscles live. So when you lose a substantial amount of body fat, along with some muscle (which is common in rapid weight loss), you are literally removing the mass that has previously been stretching your skin. When that mass is gone, you're left with a partially empty wrapper.

What causes loose skin after you lose weight?

Your skin is a very elastic organ that has to stretch as you move and grow. It also has to shrink if you lose fat and muscle. But your skin is not just one big piece of rubber that covers the entire body—it's an organ. Just like all the other organs in your body, it's made of cells.

Though the skin cells on the outer part of your skin (the epidermis) are constantly being sloughed off and replaced with new cells, the skin cells under the epidermis are a bit more permanent.

Different layers of your skin have different types of cells. Though the skin cells on the outer part of your skin (the epidermis) are constantly being sloughed off and replaced with new cells, the skin cells under the epidermis are a bit more permanent. These layers of the skin, called the dermis and sub-dermis, are made up of elastic connective tissues, fibers, blood vessels and all sorts of components that can stretch or contract depending on how they’re treated.

When you lose weight, and especially when you lose weight very quickly, these elastic components of your skin not only lose the layers of fat that keep them stretched out over your body, but they also don’t have much time for their elasticity to adapt to your new body shape.

Is it loose skin or just stubborn fat?

In general, immediately after weight loss, the majority of loose skin is actually just excess subcutaneous body fat covered by skin. So even if you have hit your “goal weight,” you may actually still have some of this body fat hanging around.

Subcutaneous fat is referred to as "soft fat," which can be easily confused with plain old skin. This type of fat can be very stubborn, which means it can take a long time to disappear after you've lost weight. And...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

Can I Visit Just One Family During the Pandemic?

“I’m just so sick of you!”

“How long have we been in here?!”

“I just want a playdate!”

These are quotes from my six-year-old daughter’s friends as reported in a text chain of moms I turn to for sanity and support these days. Children are often the voice of raw truth, untempered by societal norms. I think it’s safe to say that many of us are feeling similar emotions now that we're more than 30 days into social distancing efforts to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus. 

Humans are social animals

With the weather warming up, families reaching their limits with each other, and those isolating alone eager for other human contact, many are considering adding just one more friend or family into the fold. After all, isn’t that the same as staying home alone, as long as we both vow to only see each other? Well, a new report shows that even visiting one other friend or household reconnects (and gives a path for the virus to travel through) most households in a community. 

How can that possibly be true? A simulation put together by a team at the University of Washington shows us how. I’m sorry to say, the math doesn’t lie.

A new report shows that even visiting one other friend or household reconnects (and gives a path for the virus to travel through) most households in a community.

The work was led by Dr. Steven Goodreau, a professor of anthropology and epidemiology, and Dr Martina Morris, professor of sociology and statistics. They are both network epidemiologists, which, according to UW, means they study how social connections influence the spread of infectious agents. 

The visualization, appropriately called “Can’t I please just visit one friend?” looks at 200 imaginary households represented by 200 green dots with dark gray lines connecting the households that have social connections. The researchers focused only on social connections that could lead to the spread of the novel coronavirus, like personal contact closer than the recommended six feet.

Without any social distancing efforts at all, each household has an average of 15 connections to other households.

Of course, some households have more connections than others, but without any social distancing efforts at all, each household has an average of 15 connections to other households. As you can imagine, the visualization looks like a big messy ball of dots and lines. Each household is also connected within only three degrees of separation. So...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

How to Think Positive to Be More Productive

At a time when days blend together and uncertainty pervades, there's so much that lives outside of our control. So for today, let’s focus on something we can control, at least to some extent—our mindset and, in turn, our personal productivity.

What is a mindset?

According to an article by Gary Klein, Ph.D., for Psychology Today:

A mindset is a belief that orients the way we handle situations … our reactions and tendencies. They let us frame situations: they direct our attention to the most important cues so that we’re not overwhelmed with information.

In other words, your mindset impacts how you receive and respond to information, and ultimately the choices and actions that follow.

A positive mindset doesn’t mean you have blind optimism; it's more about having a willingness to believe in possibilities. Are you trying to get things done at work but finding that an anxious mindset is dragging you down? Here are some ways to achieve a positive mindset that can help you be less overwhelmed and more productive.

Choose words wisely

When we speak, the words we use impact our mindset. And that's true of both our external conversations with others and our own internal monologues.

According to the Association for Talent Development: 

We respond to words at a visceral, autonomic level ... Understanding the impact of words on the brain can help us to become better managers, parents, negotiators—almost any other role in which we as … professionals may find ourselves.

Words can prime our brains to respond in certain ways. So if we can’t change the situation we’re in, we can choose words that help us feel more hopeful or optimistic in how we navigate it.

“This crisis is never going to end” might be what your brain is telling you right now. But challenge your brain instead to think “I can’t see the end of this crisis, but it will come at some point.”

Same facts, different words.

RELATED: How to Avoid Common Thinking Traps

If you’re natural cynic, this change may feel forced at first (trust me; I know this firsthand). But remember that we want to direct our attention toward optimism and productivity. If you lean into the belief that a crisis is neverending, then of course your brain won’t want to be productive. What would be the point...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

5 Positive Ways to Reduce Sibling Rivalry

"She keeps touching my doll—make her stop!"

"We always have to watch Jack's stupid shows!"

"I told you to stay out of my room!"

If you're the parent of siblings, bickering like this is the norm. Squabbles amongst siblings are a constant source of frustration for families. As much as we'd rather not have our kids at each other's throats all day long, sibling rivalry is a normal part of family life. How a parent deals with sibling friction, however, can help turn feuds into opportunities for growth and harmony.

Why do sibs squabble?

If you grew up with siblings of your own, you probably remember anything from petty bickering to all-out brawls. Why can't brothers and sisters just get along?

There are many reasons—stress, being overly tired or hungry, not feeling well, or being protective of possessions are common themes. The ultimate reason, however, is that it’s challenging for kids to share Mom and Dad with others, particularly their siblings.

Sibling jealousy, which leads to continuous rivalry, stems from each child’s deep desire for the exclusive love of his parents.

A book with terrific insight—Siblings Without Rivalry, by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish—explains that the experts in this field agree: sibling jealousy, which leads to continuous rivalry, stems from each child’s deep desire for the exclusive love of his parents.

While raising my eight kids, who were very close in age, I knew that although I had plenty of love to go around for each of them, it was also vital that they knew it. Here are five positive ways you can show each child the love, and help them constructively manage their sibling setbacks.

5 positive ways to reduce sibling rivalry

1. Try a Leader of the Day program

Once, my kindergartener snuck into her big sister’s bedroom and helped herself to the colorful Sharpies sitting on the desk. The bloodcurdling screams from my older child lead me right to the scene of the crime, the bathroom. My five-year-old was using the markers to perform a makeover on her doll, and then herself! I was preoccupied with a project at work and hadn’t spent much time with her. Now, she had my undivided attention.

And that was often the case! My kids would aggravate one another to get me to interact with them.

One way to be proactive in keeping the peace is to find ways to shower your kids with special time.

One way to be proactive in keeping the...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

How to Make Your Home (and Everything in it) Smell Good

You walk into your home after being gone at work or out shopping, and whoa … something smells funky! But where is it coming from? You sniff. You search. You’re stumped. Has this ever happened to you?

Your home can be filled with all sorts of things that can make it smell downright yucky. When that happens, you may be tempted to quickly spray a commercial air freshener or light a candle, but those are just temporary cover-ups.  You’ve really got to get to the root of the problem to remove that horrible stench from your home for good. 

Today, I’ve got nine easy recipes for natural, homemade remedies to help deodorize and freshen your home:

1. Homemade room and furniture deodorizing spray
2. Simmer pot air freshener
3. Carpet refresher
4. Home and car fresheners
5. Natural room diffuser
6. Natural air freshener gel
7. Smelly shoe deodorizing spray
8. Stinky pet spray
9. Deodorizing discs

Tip #1: Homemade Room and Furniture Deodorizing Spray

This simple recipe is a snap to make and safe to use either by spritzing into the air or spraying directly on that smelly couch or recliner. This spray uses your favorite essential oil. If you haven’t used essential oils, I encourage you to check out my episode How to Use Essential Oils in Your Home to learn more about their natural, non-toxic benefits. Here’s the quick and easy recipe for deodorizing room spray:

• 1 Tablespoon baking soda
• 2-3 drops essential oil – I like lavender, lemon, orange, cinnamon, or peppermint. Use a scent you like or mix and match to create your own personal scent.
• Distilled water

Mix the baking soda and essential oil thoroughly. Using a funnel to add this mixture to an 8-12 ounce spray bottle. Add distilled water to fill and shake well. Now, it’s ready to use!

Tip #2: Simmer Pot Air Freshener 

For a long-lasting wonderful aroma that permeates your entire home, try my simmer pot recipe. Use this around the winter holidays to create a warm, homey ambiance. It’s also great in summer to get rid of stinky, sweaty smells that seem to come from everywhere. Mix and match your ingredients for a unique scent. Here’s the basic recipe, but you should feel free to change it up:

• 1 orange, sliced
• 1 lemon, sliced
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 4...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

Want to Sleep During Quarantine? Do It Like an Astronaut!

Greetings from my couch to yours! As I prepare this episode, I'm in my sixth week of sheltering in place. Like many people around the world, it's also my first experience with staying at home for so long. If you're also feeling self-quarantine cabin fever, you're not alone. (Well, maybe you are, but not in spirit!) Most of us are feeling the strain of social isolation and physical confinement.

Part of the isolation package is sleep disruption. I've heard from more than a few people that they've developed insomnia, feel tired all the time, or have been having more nightmares than usual. My sleep health provider colleagues have received record numbers of calls.

RELATED: 5 Steps to Help You Overcome Nightmares

How do we deal with sleep problems in these unprecedented circumstances? Even most sleep scientists have never specifically studied the consequences of prolonged isolation and confinement, much less experienced it.

But you know who has? Astronauts!

The Institute for Biomedical Problems (IBMP) of the Russian Academy of Sciences conducted a bold and unique experiment in 2011. Six astronauts of diverse nationality and cultural backgrounds were confined together for 520 days in an environment simulating the inside of a spacecraft. Why 520 days? That’s how long it would take to complete a trip to Mars and back. The crew experienced a totally immersive simulation of what a Mars mission would entail. The scientists wanted to see how confinement and isolation would affect the astronauts’ performance, psychological well-being, and of course, sleep.

Most of us won’t be going to Mars any time soon, but perhaps we can learn a thing or two about keeping sleep on track during a less intense version of confinement. 

1. Keep a consistent schedule

Take it from Scott Kelly, a retired astronaut who spent a year in the International Space Station. The first piece of advice he has for those living in isolation and confinement is to follow a schedule.

And there is science to back him up—schedules tend to falter during confinement. The 520-day Mars mission experiment found that the majority of the six-person crew, all of whom were healthy and physically fit before the hatch closed, experienced some degree of sleep disturbance. Why? One reason scientists suspect is...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

What Does ‘Cabin Fever’ Mean? Plus Other ‘Fever’ Words

We come to you in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. One of the symptoms of COVID-19 is a fever, and that got us thinking about the word “fever” and the different phrases that use it. 

After a bit of noodling around, here’s what we learned.

The Origin of the Word ‘Fever’

The word “fever” comes from the classical Latin “febris.” It’s also related to the Latin word “fovēre,” meaning “to heat,” and the ancient Greek “τέϕρα” (pronounced “tephra”), meaning “ash.”

'Fever' originally related to heat.

The first time it was printed was in an Old English herbarium — a book describing how to use herbs as medicine. The author said that people who have a “fefer” should “wyrte wel drincan on wætere” — that is, drink lots of water brewed with plants from the wort family, like spiderwort or St. John’s wort.  

The Meaning of ‘Fever’ Gets Extended

By the 1300s, we see the use of the word expand. It starts to also mean a state of nervous excitement or agitation. We see phrases like “a fever of jealousy” and “a fever of the soul.” We still use that meaning today — you’ll know that if you’ve ever had “a fever for the flavor of a  Pringle.” (For those of you too young to recognize that jingle, it’s from an iconic 1980s ad for those flattened, processed potato chips known as Pringles.)

Later, 'fever' related to excitement or agitation.

“Fever” also paired up with various modifiers over time. These phrases referred to an intense enthusiasm that usually burned out quickly.

For example, in the 1600s, “tulip fever” broke out in the Netherlands. These bulbs began to be imported from the Ottoman Empire, and prices for them skyrocketed. 

In the 1760s, when the Seven Years’ War raged between Great Britain and France, British fanatics were said to have “war-fever.” 

In 1848, the discovery of gold in California sparked a “gold fever” — a mass migration of miners into California’s goldfields. By 1855, more than 300,000 people had moved into the state.

And of course, in the 1970s, many of us had the most embarrassing fever of all — disco fever. Admit it — many of you probably wore gold lame and bell-bottoms, and danced your heart out to songs like “Stayin’ Alive” by the Bee Gees and “...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

Why Are We ‘Overwhelmed,’ but not ‘Whelmed’?

Last week, I got this question from Jessica in East Harlem:

 

"My mother texted me asking if I was overwhelmed and pondered in the same text ‘why can you be overwhelmed, but not whelmed?’ So I looked it up and found that ‘whelmed’ actually is a word. I had no idea, and I’ve never heard it used. Any idea why people use 'over' and 'under,' but not just 'whelmed'?"

I was surprised to find that “whelmed” is a word too!

Originally, 'whelm' was a verb that meant 'to capsize,' as in 'the barge whelmed.'

"Whelmed" was originally a nautical term. Back in the 1300s, it meant to capsize or to turn any kind of hollow vessel upside down, and it was sometimes used with the word “over.” For example, one sentence in the Oxford English Dictionary reads, “Their ovens are large iron pots which they whelm over things to be baked, upon heated iron plates.”

Later, it described other kinds of turning over, like turning over dirt to expose the part below, burying something under dirt or snow, or describing something that had been ruined by being flooded over with water.

Obviously, “whelmed” isn’t used much anymore. The word we know is “overwhelmed,” which is nearly as old, and had a slightly more limited meaning, but still related to things being overturned, upside down, rotated, and so on— generally something that is just kind of topsy-turvy.

I can’t tell you why “overwhelmed” beat “whelmed” in the word popularity contest, but it does give it more meaning for me to know that being overwhelmed is related to all those ideas of being buried, flooded, or out of place in the world.

Surprisingly, "underwhelmed" is a much newer word. Merriam-Webster says the word first appeared in print in 1949 and was probably coined as a joke based on twisting the meaning of "overwhelmed."

Finally, your question reminded me of an episode we did a few years ago about similar words, such as “disheveled” and “disgruntled.” You can’t be sheveled, but it turned out that “gruntled” actually is a word, and we just don’t use...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

How to Get Rid of Spiders in Your Home

Cedar Chip Solution

Put some cedar chips into a few pairs of old pantyhose and hang them where you often see spiders. Just like moths, spiders hate the scent and will leave any area where cedar chips hang.

Walnuts to Repel Spiders

This might be an old wives’ tale, but if you’re eating walnuts, it’s worth a shot! Keep your home spider-free by putting out whole walnuts in their shell in corners, on windowsills, or wherever you tend to see the creepy crawlers. Walnut shells contain a chemical toxic to spiders, and they'll stay away.

Use Apples As Spider Repellent

If you live in a part of the country where hedge apples grow, you can use these fruits to repel spiders. Just place a few wherever you tend to see spiders hang out in your home. They’re even more effective than walnuts at keeping spiders away.

DIY Spray to Get Rid of Spiders

Did you know that spiders “taste” food through sensors on the tips of their spidey legs? And one thing they don’t like the taste of is citrus. If you’re looking to keep spiders out of your home, try making this nontoxic repellent. In a spray bottle, mix together 2 cups water with 1½ teaspoons citrus essential oil (such as orange, lemon, or lime). Spray wherever you see spiders or their webs, and the citrus flavor will send them packing.

Keep Spiders Away from Your House

Does your house need a spider-free overhaul? If you’re house is overrun with spiders and you’re determined to get rid of them for good, try these great suggestions from Bob Villa, which include turning off the lights outside around your home at night so that spiders aren’t attracted to the light.

Check out more ways to keep pests out of your yard on our Bug and Pest Natural Remedies board on Pinterest. And don’t forget to follow us on Facebook for our Tip of the Day!

Image by Shutterstock. The suggestions offered here are for informational purposes only.  The Authors and Publisher do not accept liability for damages arising from the use, attempted use, misuse or application of any of the suggestions included on this website.

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

Grammar Quirks: Ilana C. Myer on Letters as Colors

Grammar Girl: What’s your favorite word and why?

Ilana C. Myer: I gravitate to words that are small and packed with meaning. Words with layers of history under the silt. That means, of course, that I have many favorite words—I could never choose just one.

I should come clean and admit that I also have synesthesia—I see letters in different colors. When letters join to create a word, it is a lovely cascade of color like the tail of a peacock. I may be influenced in some ways, in my choice of words, by the colors I see. There’s no way to know for sure.

GG: What’s a word you dislike (either because it’s overused or misused) and why?

ICM: I avoid words that represent a recent fad or trend. Maybe it’s my stubborn resistance to conformity, but nonetheless. I’d rather find my own way to express a thought than resort to the common parlance.

GG: What word will you always misspell?

ICM: “Bureaucracy” is a killer. It may be the only word I have to look up every single time. Given its definition, there’s something poetic in that.

GG: What word (or semblance of a word) would you like to see added to the dictionary? Why?

ICM: There should be a word for the grief experienced when you run out of ice cream in the freezer. Why not?

I may be influenced in some ways, in my choice of words, by the colors I see.

GG: Any grammar pet peeves we should know about?

ICM: I have so many. One that particularly bugs me is the misuse of “lay/laid.” It seems fairly straightforward to me that we would say “He lay down on the hammock” not “He laid down,” and yet. And yet. (Now if you wanted to say “He laid down the law,” that’s another thing altogether!)

GG: To what extent does grammar play a role in character development and voice?

ICM:  If a character is to have an individual voice, then ideally you’ll pay a great deal of attention to how they sound—whether it’s in dialogue or in their internal monologue. That means many subtle...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

10 Things Student Loan Borrowers Should Know About Coronavirus Relief

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act became law on March 27, 2020. It includes broad relief for hardships created by the COVID-19 pandemic, including significant benefits for Americans paying off student loans.

In this post, we’ll cover what the coronavirus relief is, who can use it, and how it impacts the future of your student loan repayment. I’ll also answer the following questions from Money Girl readers and podcast listeners about paying their loans.

Maria B. says:

I have a $240,000 federal consolidated student loan that’s in the 20-year forgiveness program. But I won’t be able to pay off the loan before the 20-year term ends. Now that the loan is in forbearance due to coronavirus, should I opt out and continue paying it down or use the money for something else?

Rebecca says:

I want to thank you for your helpful podcast and tips. Although this is a tough time, I’m saving more than if I were eating out and purchasing coffees. How do you recommend I handle my federal student loans during this pandemic?

Thanks for your great questions, Maria and Rebecca! I’ll answer them as we review 10 things borrowers should know about coronavirus student loan relief.

Here’s the detail about primary benefits the CARES Act gives most people who are paying off student loans.

1. Most student loan payments are in forbearance

Starting on March 13, 2020, most student loans will be on automatic forbearance until September 30, 2020. That means you can temporarily stop making your monthly student loan payments for about six months.

If you have autopay set up to draft monthly loan payments from your bank account, it should stop and restart without you having to do anything. But keep an eye on your account to make sure you know exactly when your last loan payment occurs.

Most student loans will be on automatic forbearance until September 30, 2020. That means you can temporarily stop making your monthly student loan payments for about six months.

If you make student loan payments manually, set a calendar reminder so you won’t forget about the suspension expiration after September 30. Your loan servicer should contact you no later than in August to remind you when your payment is due. So, make sure your contact information is up to date with your lenders.

2. Student loan forbearance is retroactive

If your student loan payment was already drafted from your bank account or you sent payment for March or April, be aware that the forbearance is retroactive. That means any payments made between March 13 and September 30 can...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

13 Homemade Hair Care Solutions

Get salon results without ever leaving the house. These home remedy hair tips will have your hair feeling healthy and lush without the unnecessary products and chemicals.

Everyday Answers

1. Sensational “Salad” Shampoo
It may smell like a salad when you mix it up, but this shampoo formula works wonders to cleanse and clarify your hair! In a spray bottle, simply combine ½ cup water, ½ castile soap, ¼ cup apple cider vinegar, and 2 tablespoons tea tree oil. You can also add a few drops of your favorite essential oil scent. The result will be more liquid than creamy, so it’s easiest to wet hair, spritz it on, massage it, and then rinse.

2. Conditioners from Your Kitchen
Looking for a simple, natural conditioner you can use every day? Try mayonnaise or coconut oil. Leave on your hair for a few minutes before rinsing out. If your scalp tends to be greasy, concentrate conditioning on just your ends.

3. Get Hair to Cooperate with Lip Balm
When you’re on the run, just swipe some lip balm on your hands, warm it in your palms, and rein in crazy hair. The secret: Most lip balms contain beeswax—the base of many hair pomades.

Get to the Root of Problems

4. Healthier Hair in Your Sleep
No time for hair treatments? Restore your hair while you sleep! Before bed, apply a quarter-size dollop of coconut oil to your hair, comb it, and cover it with a shower cap. In the morning, remove the cap and shampoo as usual.

5. Save That Fruit!
Don’t toss those brown bananas and overripe avocado! They’re perfect to make a nutrient-rich conditioner. Just mash them together and enjoy a tropical hair mask for 15 minutes before washing out.

6. Thicken Thinning Hair
Feed your hair protein to thicken and strengthen! One of the best sources: eggs. Simply beat 1 or 2 eggs and apply to damp hair, paying special attention to the scalp. After 30 minutes, shampoo out.

7. Vitamins to Strengthen
We know oranges are full of good stuff for our body, but hair benefits from the vitamin C, acids, and pectin in oranges, too. To transform hair from damaged to silky and strong, puree an orange in the blender (peel included!). Apply the orange hair mask and leave on for 30 minutes before rinsing out.

8. Stop the Slick
Just like an astringent for your face can control oil, an astringent for your scalp can do the same. And it’s simple to make your own formula! Mix equal parts witch hazel and mouthwash, then dab on your scalp with a cotton ball before shampooing.

Flake Fighters

9. Dandruff Remedies...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

How to Tell If You're Really Hungry

How hungry are you right now? Were you already thinking about it before I asked you? Now that I mention it, are you hungrier than you were a minute ago? Have you ever felt hungry just a couple of hours after eating a good sized meal and wondered how you could be hungry again so soon? Have you ever gone longer than usual without eating and noticed a mysterious absence of hunger?

What Does Hunger Feel Like?

Hunger feels a little bit different to everyone—and the same person may experience hunger in different ways at different times.  Laurel recently wrote to me about this:

“Sometimes my stomach will growl, but I don't 'feel' hungry. Other times I'll get that weak, shaky, low blood sugar feeling without ever feeling stomach pangs. Then, there is the classic empty stomach feeling, an almost-but-not-quite pain. And sometimes I have an overwhelming desire to eat without bodily sensations. Is there any research on what these different types of hunger mean?”

Hunger is a very interesting thing—it’s equal parts biological instinct and learned response. It can show up as a variety of physical sensations but hunger also has psychological and even emotional dimensions—and these are particularly susceptible to manipulation and cultural influence.

For example, most people used to regularly go four or five or even six hours between meals without thinking twice about it. It’s not that they never felt any sensation of hunger during those hours. It’s just that those sensations weren’t perceived as an emergency.

But then, this popular myth arose that if you went more than two hours without eating, your metabolism would slow down. There was absolutely no truth to this but a lot of people bought into it. And as a result, a random twinge suddenly took on new meaning: “Stop everything! My metabolism is shutting down!”

See also: How Often Should You Eat?

After a while it gets harder and harder to distinguish physical hunger from anxiety, habit, or plain suggestibility.

---

Can You Trust Your Hunger?

As I wrote in a recent newsletter, a central tent of the intuitive eating movement is to listen to our bodies. The idea is to eat when we're actually hungry as opposed to eating simply because it's a certain time or day or because there happens to be food in front of us or because we're feeling bored or blue.

It's good advice … except that our experience of hunger may not always a very reliable guide as to whether our bodies actually need food or not. And we all know what happens if we eat more food than our...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

Grammar Quirks: Jessica Pennington on Email Punctuation

Grammar Girl: What’s your favorite word and why?

Jessica Pennington: Maybe it’s because even through childhood I was a middle-aged librarian in a child’s body, but I’ve always loved old-timey words, and "kerfuffle" is one of my favorites. It’s actually comical how often I manage to use that word in daily conversation.

GG: What’s a word you dislike (either because it’s overused or misused) and why?

JP: "Affect" versus "effect," because while I can always identify when someone else confuses the two, I also only have a fifty-percent success rate using them myself.

GG: What word will you always misspell or misuse?

JP: "Blonde" versus "blond" is my kryptonite. I can never get it right, no matter how many times I use it.

GG: What word (or semblance of a word) would you like to see added to the dictionary? Why?

JP: Honestly, I don’t feel qualified to add new words to the dictionary, but that’s mainly because I would add words like squee.

Squee /skwee/

Potential definition: A high-pitched squeak indicating excitement or joyful anticipation, often accompanied by hand clapping or jumping.

Used in a sentence: She would squee with delight at the sight of puppies.

GG: Any grammar pet peeves we should know about?

JP: I think, in general, I just hate being aware of bad grammar usage. For example, seeing someone on social media use a word incorrectly over and over. I’m absolutely not the type of person who is going to correct someone or grammar-shame them, but it will haunt my thoughts all day! If FB had a warning on posts that said, "Hey, this post misuses 'there'/'they’re'/'their.' Are you sure you want to view it?" that would save me from a lot of stress.

GG: To what extent does grammar play a role in character development and voice?

JP: I tend to favor my characters using proper grammar—for the most part—and lean more on word choices and sentence structure to differentiate between characters, and especially between...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

Is Excessive Moderation the Key to Fitness?

Part of my job as a fitness and movement writer and podcaster is to stay up-to-date with sports science and research. The other part of my job is to keep my finger on the pulse of what other people like me are writing, preaching, and teaching. Which is why I have a love-hate relationship with my job. I love the science but I often hate the way it gets presented, packaged, and sold to the public. 

So when I come across people who not only align with my philosophy but also really have the public’s best fitness interests in mind, I latch on to them. (Honestly, that is one of the biggest reasons why I was so excited to join the team here at Quick and Dirty Tips. I was a fan for many years before I became a team member.)

About my guest, Tom Holland

Tom Holland is one of those people who not only aligns with my many of my philosophies and ideals but also has a robust background and education that I can trust. 

Tom Holland, MS, CSCS, CISSN is an internationally recognized exercise physiologist and certified sports nutritionist with over three decades of experience in the industry. Tom works with individuals, companies, and organizations in need of targeted expertise in exercise science and sports nutrition as the CEO and founder of TeamHolland, LLC, a fitness consulting company. 

Tom is also the author of six books including Beat the Gym, Swim, Bike, Run – Eat and The Micro Workout Plan. He's a frequent fitness expert on TV including The TODAY Show, Good Morning America, CNN, and QVC, and his fitness advice appears regularly in national newspapers and magazines. He also the hosts a new iHeartRadio podcast, Fitness Disrupted.

Every day, all day movement

Choosing a topic to chat with Tom about was tricky since our lives and expertise overlap in so many areas. But when I discovered Tom’s passion for what he refers to as “excessive moderation” (don’t worry he will explain that later), I just had to pick his brain about the importance of the movement we do outside of the gym and how we can get more of it and more out of it. 

This is a transcript of my conversation with Tom, but as always I encourage you to listen to the podcast audio so you don’t miss any of the nuance and fun. 

The first thing that I wanted to dive into here is explaining the difference between everyday movements and our dedicated exercise time. I mean, those are two very distinct ideas, but they...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

How to Be a Leader During a Crisis

Recently, I hosted a Facebook Live to field questions and offer tips on how to navigate work during the Coronavirus. An audience member asked this question:

My team looks to me for leadership, but right now I'm as freaked out as they are. How can I be a source of calm and support for them in a crisis?

The person who asked this question is in good company. I’ve had friends, clients, and even one husband inquiring about the same. So let’s talk about it. How do you lead a team through a crisis when you're battling the very same crisis?

And please note, whoever you are, I’m talking to you. Because whether it’s your team, your family, your community, or yourself, every one of us is leading someone right now.

Start by caring for you

Daniel Goleman, the man who first coined the term “Emotional Intelligence,” recently published an article highlighting the importance of the emotional state of leaders right now. When we allow our minds to get wound up in fear or anxiety, we become less effective at taking in information or making sound decisions. Goleman says:

The fundamental step every leader needs to take now enables him or her to manage their own emotional state. That means changing your relationship to your feelings—recognizing them rather than just being pushed around by them. And once you know what you are feeling—particularly if it’s fear, anxiety or worry—the next step comes down to managing those feelings.

Don’t think of this is a nice-to-do when things slow down. Recognize managing your emotional state as an essential step in readying yourself to be the person your team, family, or community needs you to be right now.

When you're anxious and afraid, it can be hard to think clearly, let alone get work done.  See episode 591 on managing anxiety at work for some clear and tangible advice.

Be transparent

Being a leader doesn't mean being a superhero. Regardless of where you sit on an organization chart, you’re navigating your way through this crisis. Whether you live alone or have children or elders or a partner relying on you, you need time, space, and grace to find your way through this uncertain moment.

So don’t try to hide that from your team. Let them...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

What Is the Air Quality Like Near You?

Stay at home orders due to the novel coronavirus pandemic mean there are far fewer cars on the road. Traffic is down so far that the state of California has seen a 50 percent decrease in car accidents, down to about 500 per day, which has saved the state an estimated $40 million per day.

In a previous episode, we discussed how all of this inactivity has led to drastic reductions in ozone-destroying greenhouse gases like nitrous oxide as mapped by NASA and ESA satellites. But what about other forms of pollution—in particular, the ones we can see with our own eyes?

Photos show empty streets and clear skies in Bangkok, Sao Paulo, and Bogota.

Anecdotal evidence is popping up all over the world where people are highlighting lower levels of smog—or visible air pollution—including nitrous oxide but also sulfur oxide, ozone, smoke, and other particles. Photos of the India Gate war memorial and the Gopaldas Ardee commercial building in New Delhi, India, show huge differences in visibility from just six months ago. Other photos show empty streets and clear skies in Bangkok, Sao Paulo, and Bogota. From my home in Los Angeles, I’ve never witnessed so many clear days in a row. 

How can you assess the air quality where you live?

How do we measure air quality?

One major source of smog is particulate matter—or organic and inorganic matter suspended in the air—including sulfates, nitrates, ammonia, sodium chloride, black carbon, mineral dust, and water. Particulates are usually classified as those with sizes of 2.5 microns or less in diameter (PM_2.5) and those with sizes of 10 microns or less (PM₁₀). For comparison, a typical air molecule has a size of around 0.33 nanometers—around 10,000 times smaller than particulate matter. A human hair is about 60 microns in diameter and a grain of sand is 90 microns. PM₁₀ are dangerous because they can get in...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

How to Create Healthy Habits That Strengthen Your Family (Part 2)

Last week, in part one of this series, I introduced How to Create Healthy Habits That Strengthen Your Family. I invite you to check out the first five healthy habits that have made a positive impact on my family’s life.

This week, I have five more successful habits that have helped my own family of eight kids, ages 14 to 26, sustain a healthy and happy lifestyle.

Healthy Habit #6: Get plenty of rest

Getting restful sleep every night is important to our physical and emotional health. Of course, with everything we need to do throughout the day, many of us deprive ourselves of the proper rest. Families are often so busy that they try to make extra time by sleeping less, creating a bad habit that can last a lifetime. By establishing a regular bedtime for yourself and your kids, you will be setting up an essential practice that will not only benefit you now, but when your child becomes an adult.

In my episode 5 Ways to Help Your Family Sleep Better, I shared a study from The National Sleep Foundation:

• Newborns should sleep 12 to 18 hours out of every 24 (as every new parent hopes)
• Toddlers under age 3 need 12-14 hours of sleep
• Preschoolers between ages 3 and 5 need 11-13 hours
• School-age children ages 5 to 10 need 10 to 11 hours per night
• Teens need about nine hours of sleep each night to function best

Most teens don't get nearly enough sleep. One study found that only 15 percent of teenagers reported sleeping eight-and-a-half hours on school nights.

My episode on sleep has suggestions on how you can help your family get the rest they need by rethinking your whole relationship with sleep. We invest our time and energy in educational and social experiences for our kids, yet monitoring the amount of sleep they get each night can easily fall off the radar.

If you have babies and younger children, reevaluate your nap and bedtime routines. If you have school-aged children or teens, take an honest look at your whole family's sleep habits. Getting good sleep is as important as eating well and going for your annual wellness checkups.

Healthy Habit #7: Promote financial responsibility

... Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

What Does Your Street Address Mean?

The Address Book, written by Deirdre Mask, is an investigative novel focused on the social history and culture behind street addresses. She joined QDT for a Q&A about her research.

What was it that got you interested in studying the concepts behind street addresses? Where did you start your research?

Procrastinating on the internet one day, I discovered that most people in the world don’t have reliable street addresses. At first it was just a quirky piece of trivia, but I soon learned that there is a deep connection between poverty and a lack of street addresses. Without a street address, you often can’t get a bank account, for example, and you might struggle to vote. When I learned that organizations like the World Bank saw addresses as a simple way to help lift people out of poverty, I launched this unusual journey. Soon, I was finding powerful stories about addresses all over the world and throughout history—from ancient Rome to Nazi Germany to modern New York—and The Address Book was born.

If there was a thesis statement to this book, what would it be?

All the chapters of the book center on a different place and theme, but they all tend to come back to the same point: that the way we name our streets and number our buildings reveals a lot about the way our societies work, for better or worse. Epidemiologists—or “disease detectives”—often rely on street addresses to help track pandemics in the population. Streets in slums aren’t named because so often the world doesn’t value the people who live there. And the names we give our streets—whether it’s Martin Luther King Drive or General Robert E. Lee Street—can tell us a lot about the past and present of our communities.

The way we name our streets and number our buildings reveals a lot about the way our societies work, for better or worse.

How can communities work together to raise awareness about the issues street addresses raise?

People are already thinking a lot about what street names mean for their communities—the sweeping street name changes in post-apartheid South Africa offer just one example. But a broader awareness of how the lack of addresses affects marginalized people, including the homeless in our own local parks, would push us further in the direction of greater equality. And, of course, thinking about street addresses can also just be fun! Researching a street name might reveal a town’s hidden history, the names of the families who once lived there, and...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

5 Steps to Help You Overcome Nightmares

You’re being chased by a monster. It always seems to be just two steps behind. You run and run, your whole body on fire with fear, and you can’t shake your pursuer. Your teeth start rattling and falling out. Then, somehow you’re on stage, under a spotlight, and you realize you’re not wearing pants and everyone in the audience is staring at you.

Hopefully, you haven’t experienced any of those events in real life. But I wouldn’t be surprised to hear you’ve gone through at least one of these common themes in dreamland and woken up in a cold sweat with your heart pounding.

What are nightmares and who has them more often?

Nightmares are mysterious. Folklore from around the world has attributed nightmares to be demons, the souls of dead people who were wronged in life, and spirits with all sorts of malicious intent. Nowadays, although we haven’t fully solved the mystery of why nightmares exist and how they come about, we know that they're intense mental activity that happens mostly during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. Usually, we experience nightmares as very vivid dreams that are terrifying or upsetting. And, naturally, they can disrupt our sleep and affect our mood.

Most of us are lucky and only have nightmares once in a while. But for about 2-5 percent of the population, they happen often or even nightly. Nightmares are much more common among girls and women than their male counterparts. Those who struggle with alcohol or drug addiction are also more likely to have frequent nightmares. People who have posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or have experienced childhood abuse are also more at risk, and most have frequent nightmares.

But for some people, there seems to be no particular reason for persistent nightmares—instead, they have something called nightmare disorder. This is a disorder where you not only frequently have vivid and disturbing dreams, but also suffer major distress or impairment during the day such as anxiety, concentration problems, tiredness, and worry about going to sleep.

There is good news! Whether you have Nightmare Disorder, PTSD, or just more nightmares than you’d like, there are things you can do to decrease nightmares and regain a good...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

Cecelia Watson on World Semicolon Day

Today is World Semicolon Day, which encourages people to continue living when they are considering suicide. According to Project Semicolon, "a semicolon is used when an author could've chosen to end their sentence, but chose not to. The author is you and the sentence is your life.” We think that is a beautiful sentiment and that today is also a good time to talk about the semicolon in general.

Cecelia Watson, author of “Semicolon: The Past, Present,  and Future of a Misunderstood Mark,” joined me today to talk all things semicolons, including her new semicolon discoveries in "Mrs. Dalloway" and an astonishing book from the 1800s titled "The Grammar of the English Language Truly Made Easy by the Invention of 300 Movable Parts of Speech."

Also, as promised, here is the link to Bryan Garner's profile of Lindley Murray and the link to Grammar Girl's Podchaser page.

You can listen to the interview using the player at the top of this page or read a complete rough transcript.

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

Transcript: A New Interview with Cecelia Watson

A Modern Guide to Homeschooling

The reality of homeschooling today

In early 2020, Study.com conducted a study of 2,398 parents and students to find out what has become of those common myths we all hear about homeschooling: “Homeschooled students don’t develop good social skills” and “Homeschooling hurts students academically.”

Dispelling common homeschooling myths

Study.com wanted to find out how widespread these myths are today and to get some insight into what the truth is around these issues. The parents and students who took part in the survey came from both homeschool and non-homeschool backgrounds.

Homeschooling is not a single, easily-definable thing that matches the well-worn stereotypes.

Something that became increasingly clear throughout the course of the study and associated research was that homeschooling is not a single, easily-definable thing that matches the well-worn stereotypes suggested by the myths.

Many switch between homeschooling and traditional schooling as their needs dictate. Others homeschool for a particular stage of their education (e.g. high school) to achieve a particular goal (e.g. dual credit). Some families will have one child in the local high school while they homeschool their other child because that’s what’s best for those individuals.

The myth that homeschooled students don’t develop good social skills

Because families homeschool for different reasons, this also means that the way they approach homeschooling is often different. So to say that homeschooling produces socially awkward young adults, or that it is harmful to their academics, is to fundamentally misunderstand the concept.

Some homeschoolers practice homeschooling in co-ops, where they engage with a variety of peers. Other families homeschool because their children have exceptional skills in say, theatre or sports, in which they are interacting with peers and adults in different settings every day. Still others use the more relaxed schedule afforded by homeschooling to educate their children through field-trips, where they go out into the world and interact with new people every day.

There is no evidence ... to suggest that homeschooling harms children’s social development.

Even for those homeschoolers who do study mainly at home, there are so many clubs and organizations available for them to join in every part of the country that it would be more difficult to find homeschoolers who don’t have regular interaction with others.

And the existing research bears this out, too. There is no evidence that Study.com could find to suggest that homeschooling...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

Laundry Hacks: Dryer Sheets and Fabric Softener Replacements

Use Vinegar Instead

If you’re out of dryer sheets, use vinegar on a wash cloth instead: lightly dampen a wash cloth with apple cider vinegar and throw it in the dryer with your clothes. The vinegar prevents static cling and make your clothes softer. You can also use apple cider vinegar instead of liquid fabric softener in the wash cycle.

Use Baking Soda During the Wash Cycle

Another alternative for fabric softener if you usually add it into your washing machine is baking soda. Sprinkle ¼ cup into the washer during the main wash cycle to freshen and soften your clothes. And it’s all-natural, too!

Don’t Use Anything at All

Believe it or not, many people can’t tell when they remove fabric softener from their laundry regime, especially when it comes to cotton clothes like T-shirts and jeans. Now might be a good time to skip the dryer sheets altogether and see what you think! If you decide you can’t tell the difference in look and feel, you just saved yourself a bunch of money each year!

Have a Few Dryer Sheets Left?

If you have one dryer sheet left, but several loads to do, simply cut your dryer sheets in half (or in quarters). You won’t be able to tell the difference in your clothes, and in fact will be tempted to use this money-saver all the time!

Dryer Sheet Alternative

Out of dryer sheets on laundry day? No problem! Try using aluminum foil instead: Just crumple a strip of foil into a ball about the size of a baseball and toss it in the dryer with your laundry. Not only does it eliminate static, the tin foil is reusable for future loads. Strange, but true!

Less Expensive Laundry Gizmo

The secret, low-cost alternative to one of those balls that releases fabric softener during your laundry load? A clean kitchen sponge dampened with liquid fabric softener (or a couple of drops of essential oil). Just put it in the washing machine once it’s filled with water at the beginning of the load. It will slowly release the softener, just like the plastic balls do!

For more cleaning tips for around the house, check out our Cleaning Tips board on Pinterest. And don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter and follow us on Facebook and Instagram!

 

Image courtesy of ...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

How Many Animals Are Going to the River? It's Complicated

Odds are good that you've seen this riddle on social media lately.

One rabbit saw six elephants while going to the river. Every elephant saw two monkeys going towards the river. Every monkey holds one parrot in their hands. How many animals are going towards the river?

You've probably also seen the answer framed as a sort of battle between math and English. One thing's certain—your friends all think they have the answer but no one completely agrees.

The "animals going to the river" riddle from a math perspective

I'll make one thing clear up front and I'll say it in my best Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy voice: "Dangit, Jim; I'm an editor, not a mathematician!"

But from a math perspective, the riddle is at least somewhat solvable.

The answer is five.

Did you get the same answer? If you did, you may be in the majority, at least unofficially. My intel shows that five seems to be the most common answer. Let's take a look.

One rabbit saw six elephants while going to the river.

The rabbit is going to the river. Along the way, he saw six elephants.

That means one rabbit is going to the river. So far, so good.

Every elephant saw two monkeys going toward the river.

Things get a bit more complicated here. Did the six elephants each see a different two monkeys? In that case, you'd have 12 monkeys and one rabbit going toward the river—13 animals, total.

But because the sentence doesn't explicitly say that each elephant saw two different monkeys, we use the rules of implicit differentiation and infer that the elephants each saw the same two monkeys.

If you want to know more about explicit and implicit functions in math, Study.com has your back. 

Now, let's return to the critters. We're inferring that each elephant saw the same two monkeys, which means that one rabbit and two monkeys are going toward the river. So far, that's three animals total.

Every monkey holds one parrot in their hands.

Simple. We inferred that two monkeys are going toward the river. Each monkey is holding a parrot, so that's two parrots going toward the river, too.

That gives us:

1 rabbit +
2 monkeys +
2 parrots
...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

5-Minute Home Makeover with Personalized Canvas Prints

Straighten out an odd-shaped room

Some rooms are a bit like the oddly proportioned vegetables that always seem to get left at the bottom of the pail. Maybe you wouldn’t pick them first, but they’ve got more potential than you think!

You can make L-shaped rooms and other misfits seem more coherent by placing furniture at a 45-degree angle. This will help to make a virtue out of those unusual proportions.

Another challenge is to get the lighting right—the tucked-away parts of the room always seem to be gloomier than other sections. Not anyone has the time or money to install skylights, but standing a tall floor lamp in the “crook” of the room will spread light evenly and get the whole room feeling like a cohesive unit.

And if you don’t have time to repaint in light colors, hanging a large brightly colored poster will make any nook seem a bit less shadowy. 

Photo Prints to Photo Decor

We all love to print our favorite photos and display them in our homes. But some photos deserve that little bit extra.

Now, thanks to the rise of online custom printing services, you can go BIG with your most precious photos and turn them into statement decor pieces. Meaning you can do full justice to your photo memories…and also transform the look of a room in moments.

The photo printing experts at CanvasDiscount.com are ready to turn your photos into stunning wall art. You just upload a digital file of whichever image you want printed and they’ll do the rest. 

There’s a wide choice of materials to print on: metal, wood, acrylic and more. Though our top tip is canvas prints. These see your photo reproduced on canvas material which is then wrapped on a real wooden frame in the traditional gallery style. The perfect mix of timeless craftsmanship and state-of-the-art technology.

Throws of Passion

Is your sofa looking like its salad days have long since wilted? Your armchair looking scuffed and shabby? We all know that furniture isn’t just functional, it’s an integral part of your decor scheme—so a tired three-piece suite can drain the energy from a whole room.

But we also know reupholstering means paying eye-watering prices…while buying furniture new can bring you to actual floods of tears. 

The quick and easy solution? Throw on a throw.

A well-chosen embroidered cover can transform an aging sofa from shabby to chic in seconds, never mind minutes. You can cover up wear and experiment with contrasts of tone and texture to create a whole new mood.

And of course, throws come with another...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

How to Manage Unemployment and Lost Business Income

As the Coronavirus pandemic continues, the number of people becoming unemployed or losing business income is mounting. According to the Labor Department, nearly 17 million workers have filed for unemployment benefits in the past three weeks. Countless numbers of businesses—restaurants, salons, hotels, shops, and factories—have closed temporarily or, in some cases, permanently.

If you’ve been laid off or expect to be, it's critical to take advantage of every possible benefit and pivot to a new opportunity as quickly as possible.

If you’ve been laid off or expect to be, it's critical to take advantage of every possible benefit and pivot to a new opportunity as quickly as possible.

I interviewed Colleen McCreary, Chief People Officer at Credit Karma, for tips on how to navigate unemployment due to the coronavirus disaster. She joined Credit Karma in 2018 and now oversees more than 1,300 employees across offices in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K.

Colleen has more than 20 years of experience in human resources, recruiting, and operations. She understands managing people in technology companies so well that she became a technical advisor for the popular HBO series, Silicon Valley. The show’s astute HR administrator was taken straight from Colleen’s real-world experiences!

On the Money Girl podcast, Colleen and I discuss what to do if you become unemployed. We cover a variety of topics, including:

• The difference between layoffs and furloughs
• Key questions to ask your human resources administrator
• Whether you should negotiate during a termination
• How to maximize benefits from your old job
• Tips for finding a new job if you get laid off
• Common mistakes that laid-off employees make

Listen to the interview using the embedded audio player or on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, Stitcher, and Spotify.

How to manage unemployment and lost business income due to the coronavirus

Here are some tips from Laura...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips