John in Omaha, Nebraska, wonders about a phrase that encourages someone to attend an event or risk being left out or feeling uncool: be there or be square. Don’t fall for the fake etymology about people wearing boxes on their heads! Ditto for this untrue blog post, which the author himself concedes is fanciful. The practice of calling a straitlaced person square goes back at least to the 1500s. The use of square meaning “uncool” dates to around the 1930s. The rhyming phrase be there or be square is surprisingly modern, going back to the 1960s. This is part of a complete episode.
When you’re talking about the location of an inanimate object, is it okay to say that it lives there, as in The peanut butter lives in that cabinet or The flashlight lives on that shelf? Strictly speaking, of course, that object isn’t...
Sean in Oneonta, New York, says that when he was growing up in New Jersey, his family would pile in the car and set off on a surprise adventure, whether a short distance or long, and the kids would be told only that they were going on Buxtehude...
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