Today's Word Is Gingham

Tuesday night, while watching Red Dwarf with my daughter, one of the characters, Arnold Rimmer, was wearing (for comic effect) what he referred to as a 'red and white checked gingham dress'.

"Hold it," I thought, "isn't that redundant?" I always thought gingham was a red-and-white check fabric. But apparently it isn't. The best online definition is at www.dict.org, but their interface doesn't allow for linking a URL directly to a definition, so if you want theirs, you'll have to type in the word yourself. Instead, you can check out this definition from www.dictionary.com. http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=gingham