anthropomorphize

We’ve reached the era of the self-driving car! Congratulations, us. Ford, General Motors, and Volkswagen are all in the autonomous driving game, along with many up-and-comers. Waymo (a division of Alphabet, Google’s holding company) describes theirs as “a safer car for everyone.” In a way, it’s shaky ground we’re standing on. One, because we’re standing on a foundation of dated perceptions of the future, and …

Catty It seems horribly unfair to adorable cats that catty is a human descriptor meaning “devious or spiteful” (and usually in reference to female behavior). What gives? The word cat has been around since the year 700. But then, in the Middle Ages, cat became one of the many offensive terms against women and was slang for “prostitute.” The association might have been made because …