Hah! The Oxford Dictionary got all hot with acronyms AND decided to take a swipe at our fine metropolis in the latest update to its bible of acceptable words and modern-day definitions. Setting the record straight once and for all and undoubtedly breaking the hearts of lovers of lollipops the world over, Oxford Dictionaries verified that LOL does indeed stand for "laughing out loud." more ›

Is it the neck laden with big, blingy gold chains? The omnipresent sunglasses, walking stick, or dapper hat? The animal print mixed with bold-colored garb? Sure, at Halloween, (and year-round on some L.A. streets) it's easy to spot the pimps in the crowd. Now a case before the California Supreme Court has arrived at the deciding point of when a pimp becomes a pimp, according to the AP via CBS2. more ›

Are the words we use a reflection of the world we live in? That could be the case for 2010, when the most-oft looked up word, according to word experts Merriam-Webster, was austerity. A bit bleak? Perhaps. Blame the economy. "Searches for the word began to spike in May, around the time when Greece began battling its debt crisis with harsh austerity measures," explains Slate. Work "austerity" into a few sentences from here on out, and it'll be part of your vocab in no time. more ›

When wildfires occur, a lot of terminology is thrown around. Here are some of the more commonly heard words defined by the Glossary of Wildland Fire Terminology from the National Wildfire Coordinating Group, a conglomerate of federal agencies. more ›

If you were a kid growing up in Southern California, learning about the Chumash Indians was no doubt a part of your third-grade curriculum (probably right around the same time you were building a mission out of sugar cubes). The Chumash were the original inhabitants of much of SoCal's coastal areas, and did cool stuff like leech the acid out of acorns so they could make food out of it without being poisoned. Of course, it wasn't until high school that we learned about things like imperialism and colonialism, and how the Europeans did crazy stuff like pass out syphilis blankets. (Many of you might also know of the Chumash tribe from the "Pangs" episode of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" where Xander got infected with all sorts of spirit-Indian diseases; it was also a really sad episode where Angel comes back to visit and Buffy doesn't know it, but anyway, that's neither here nor there.) more ›