People & Places

We end this week with a relatively quick but useful tidbit: What do Americans, Californians, New Yorkers, Texans, Europeans, Canadians, Mexicans, and “Massholes” alike have in common? They’re all demonyms! Demonyms are words used to identify the...

Gridded Intuition

Everyone knows Boston’s roads are somewhat nonsensical. Curving through the city, intersecting at odd angles, and having crazy conventions where Winter Street becomes Summer Street, navigating Boston without a GPS is nearly impossible. Contrast that with Philadelphia,...

Driving Me Crazy

Consider a map of North America… but don’t look at one! Instead, think about the United States and how a typical North American map would appear. With that in mind, consider the following facts: Washington, DC is further north of San Fransisco New York is closer to...

Tiny Tax Exempts

Find anyone who works for a large nonprofit, and they’ll likely be familiar with that organization’s IRS acceptance letter (approving the organization’s tax-exempt status). However, tiny nonprofits often don’t know they’re entitled to the same tax-exempt status...

An FYI on Acronyms

When you see initials forming a word, do you automatically call it an acronym? If so, FYI, you might be mistaken. Take the example of the following transit systems (of course): BART, MARTA, MARC, SEPTA, METRA, MBTA, LIRR, CTA, TTC, and SFRTA. Would you be surprised to...

Just the Earnings

Perhaps the most central component to business is the ability, nay, the obligation, for private enterprises to seek financial profits for shareholders. However, profitability is often skewed by a number of factors including taxes, financing, and asset depreciation....