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I've seen and heard the phrase "Speed kills" in a few different contexts, and I'd like to know where it originated. Where did it come from? [more inside]
posted by Huffy Puffy at 5:53 PM - 8 answers

Profanity filter: For a story I'm writing, I need some help with a bit of cursing in Spanish (specifically Mexican). Putting the rest behind the cut for bad language.... [more inside]
posted by velvet_n_purrs at 8:32 AM - 11 answers

I am looking for French courses in Quebec to do next year, can anyone point me in the right direction? More details inside. [more inside]
posted by iamsuper at 4:23 AM - 9 answers

So, the young human who lives in my house wants a penpal. She's a wholesome, happy tween. And we want to keep her that way. She says she "just wants to connect with and learn about someone else who has a different life." I'm thinking another tween, maybe someone outside the US who wants to practice their English. How do we find this person and connect them, without accidentally exposing her to a chester-chester child molester or something?
posted by pomegranate at 10:33 AM - 8 answers

Is there a thesaurus for idioms? Previous Asks focus on trying to find idioms that contain a given single word, a dictionary for which exists. What I want is to look up phrases based on similar meaning. My specific need is looking up different ways to say "call [someone] on the telephone" ["give me up buzz", "hit up my cell"], NOT idioms that include the words "call" or "telephone".
posted by smokysunday at 5:03 PM - 3 answers

What is the term for a chain of bad decisions based on misperception of a situation that leads to each additional decision making the situation worse? [more inside]
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 1:23 PM - 24 answers

I've seen a host of topics about music recommendations here, even some very similar to my request, however they aren't quite I guess in the same vain as what I'm looking for. Any help? [more inside]
posted by MrFahrenheit at 10:17 AM - 35 answers

I'm trying to find a short story collection I read in the last 10 years, mostly horror I think, one story in particular sticks in my memory. [more inside]
posted by Two unicycles and some duct tape at 4:59 PM - 9 answers

When I was little, I adored the Sesame Street song "Put Down the Duckie." But I was always confused by the celebrity mashup version, which included one guest who didn't sing in English. My parents thought she was singing in Hawaiian, but coming back to it after getting two linguistics degrees, I'm not certain. Can anyone here tell?
posted by dialMforMara at 3:34 PM - 6 answers

Is there a good term for the rhetorical tactic of responding to a suggestion of a specific course of action ("We should ban guns") with broadly agreed-on facts that don't address the suggested course of action? ("Obviously, murder is bad, and I can guarantee solving a problem with multiple causes is never straightforward.") [more inside]
posted by paul_smatatoes at 6:58 AM - 19 answers

So I'm writing a story where a character is losing her mind and also writing a book, parts of which appear in the text. Her losing her mind affects the development of the chapters I'm including in the story. Looking for literary models. [more inside]
posted by angrycat at 4:39 AM - 36 answers

What are the best books/podcasts/vocab lists/online resources/whatever to learn as much practical French as possible in 10 weeks? Difficulty level: preparing to stay in Paris for a week, but happy if I only make a moderate ass of myself. [more inside]
posted by miltthetank at 3:42 PM - 16 answers

I'm looking for examples of terms that were created by a specific, known person, who had a particular way of pronouncing them, but that are pronounced differently by the general public. This can either be because the original pronunciation never caught on, or because they just changed over time. [more inside]
posted by ErWenn at 1:24 PM - 26 answers

Can you recommend any basic books on writing (particularly essay writing) for adults? [more inside]
posted by mosst at 7:30 AM - 7 answers

Following up this question about this poster I just framed, is there a specialized term for the small black and white images on the poster?
posted by ShooBoo at 8:41 PM - 4 answers

We're learning hiragana and katakana as a family (and eventually kanji). Somebody recommended Heisig, who has written short stories about each character to help you remember them. The first two hiragana lessons were great, and everything has stuck fast in our minds. Lesson three, and it starts to get real weird, with dagger-ejecting mothers spinning in fields accompanied by levitating dogs attached to boomerangs. [more inside]
posted by some little punk in a rocket at 10:45 PM - 5 answers

I'm stumbling my way through a Korean-language investment bank report and came across interesting data that is cited with the English-language name of a Chinese source. I can't identify anything by the name given. [more inside]
posted by Glomar response at 6:00 PM - 3 answers

Can anyone give me some info on what this keychain means?
posted by sacrifix at 7:22 PM - 4 answers

My students enjoy learning about animals, and we are going to be incorporating some real-world observations of animal habitats around our neighborhood along with research into a unit we're doing this fall. Help us find good books! [more inside]
posted by mai at 9:22 AM - 6 answers

I'm looking for books to read! [more inside]
posted by zeusianfog at 1:59 PM - 32 answers