Pfft, yours just melted? Mine spontaneously combusted.

Totally gritty.

Yeah, I'm Irish, and the number of babies that were neglected by the Catholic religious orders or stolen and sold to American couples over the years (long sentence, deep breath) means I hear "Catholic adoption agency" and I shudder.

Whenever I read "common sense" in this context, I choose to believe that they mean common as my mother did - she would look at someone behaving in a way that's less-than-classy and say "ugh, how dreadfully common" with a slight shudder.

Spot on. It's much more productive to ask gentle questions, encouraging her to put it together on her own, rather than telling her she's in a bad situation and she needs to get out. It's easy to feel judged when you're being abused, and fear of judgment keeps many victims of DV from talking about it. Encouraging her…

High school physics: show encourage your students to measure the speed of light by melting marshmallows in a microwave. I showed my class this when I was in high school and I became a goddamn hero. My teacher was also super excited, as our result was pretty accurate!

Both children were being raised on a vegan diet, (the parents are not vegan) sans any nut and berries, for fear that they would develop food allergies. Both children are now highly allergic to numerous foods including nuts, strawberries, and dairy.

And Irish moms! And Catholic moms in general! And Presbyterian moms!

Exactly, the child learns that the parent is a secure base to explore from and a safe haven to return to if things go wrong.

Absolutely. Video game companies have spent decades manipulating our behaviour, making us crave the next level or the next game. Using games (such as Cooter Pac Man mentioned in RoguePixies's post) increases our motivation to do the exercises.

I was just thinking that! In France you get ten sessions of inserting an electronic tampon and rhythmically squeezing it to shoot things on screen/chase things. It's pretty cool.

The White House fence is a metaphor for the US-Mexico border.

I love your condor.

There is no medically proven 'gluten allergy'.

This is what life as an African American woman in 2014 looks like; you know what you deserve but you are winded when you get it.

Exorcise your computer. It's the only way.

It's just a weird and interesting substitution - it's more usual for an Irish name to autocorrect to an everyday English word, so it happening in this direction was very odd!

President Coin, surely?

It depends on where you are in the world, but generally there's a move away from using possessive nouns in the names of syndromes.

BY PHILIP LARKIN