Next time you feel as though someone in the office isn’t being perfectly honest with you, why not ask him if he’s cheesing to you.

I recently discovered “cheese” is more than a noun I stuff between bread to grill on the office Forman and dunk in tomato soup on my lunch-break. The ABC Office Word Nerd is at it again…

I was Thesaurusing – which actually, is definitely not a word at all – and stumbled upon the verb “to cheese” and it means to “lie”, “adulterate” or “cover up.” Who knew? So, the next time someone lies about stealing your afternoon snack at work, you can ask her if she’s cheesing about the missing crackers and cheese.

How about this creepy cheese ad of some sort? Can we say Children of the Corn? Was there ever a movie made called Children of the Cheese?

Another fun word discovery: do you know the difference between “theater” and “theatre”? Here at ABC, we do a lot of event marketing and such for tourism clients, and those events occur at both theaters and theatres across the state, so naturally my curiosity was ignited. After a little research, I have boldly gone where no word nerd has gone before. Not really. But what I found was that some say “theater” means venue, while “theatre” means the field, art form, show, etc.

“Theater” means movies, whereas “theatre” means stage. Some argue “theatre,” and most of the English-language words with the “re” ending, is just a version of the original Greek spelling (“theatron”). Judging from our tourism clients’ use of “theater” and “theatre” in their various regions, I’m not entirely convinced a reason exists behind the different spelling. In fact, I think they should be able to choose which version they prefer, and so should you in your everyday life. If you’re feeling fancy, you must be horse and buggying it at high noon, post tea-and-crumpets, to the “theatre” for a dramatic performance. And if you’re ho-humming in your relaxed jeans and favorite band tee-shirt, looking for comedic relief from B-list actors,  “theater” will do the trick.

Got a word inquiry? Send it my way. We’ll get to the bottom of it – you have my ABC Office Word Nerd word.