Sign up for the daily CJR newsletter. When we talked about “bizarro” words last week, we promised to talk this week about the difference between “colloquial ...

If an alien were to stand in the middle of the Quad, or maybe in the center of Lenoir Dining Hall, they’d hear some of the most exquisite diction of our species. Someone is “geekin” on the escalator.

Colloquial language does not entirely match up with formal language. This means that some colloquial phrases can mean something entirely different from their formal meaning. Take the following couple ...