Issue: April 9, 2026

Martell is a company that produces what specific type of liquor that’s the basis for cocktails like the sidecar (when ya combine it with triple sec & lemon juice) & the New Orleans classic the Sazerac (which comes mixed with a sugar cube & Peychaud’s Bitters & li’l absinthe)?

What do linguists call words in different languages that are derived from a common ancestor? So like ya got the word skeleton in English & esquelet in Catalan & they both mean the whole set of the bones ya got inside you (y’know, inside the skin & muscles & what-have-yous that we all have) & they both come from the Greek σκελετός that means “dried up” – since, ya know, skeletons are all dried up & they definitely can’t be walkin & talkin & writin trivia newsletters all on their own – that’d be CRAZY, ya need squishy wet stuff like flesh & blood & a brain to do all THAT, ha ha ha!!