Jane in Tippecanoe, Indiana, was intrigued by a phrase she encountered while reading Kinky Friedman’sArmadillos and Old Lace. (Bookshop|Amazon). She remembers hearing the phrase crazy as a bedbug, and wonders about Friedman’s use of the phrase crazy as a Betsy bug. Both phrases refer to the insect behavior — the erratic movements of bedbugs and the stridulation, or shrill noise of Odontotaenius disjunctus. The latter also goes by such colloquial names as patent-leather beetle, bessy bug, and best bug. This is part of a complete episode.
A Winter Dictionary (Bookshop|Amazon) by Paul Anthony Jones includes some words to lift your spirits. The verb whicken involves the lengthening of days in springtime, a variant of quicken, meaning “come to life.” Another word, breard, is...
Rosalind from Montgomery, Alabama, says her mother used to scold her for acting like a starnadle fool. The more common version of this term is starnated fool, a term that appears particular to Black English, and appears in the work of such writers...
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