A newscaster covering treacherous driving conditions offered this advice: Keep it between the mustard and the mayo. In other words, “Make sure your car stays between the yellow line and the white line on the road.” This is part of a complete episode...
A Utah listener recalls a story about her German-speaking mother-in-law referring to a childhood illness as the German disease. In English, the term most commonly referred to syphilis, a disease that different cultures blamed on their neighbors with...
The entry for geranium lake in Webster’s Third New International Dictionary describes it as “a vivid red that is lighter and slightly yellower and stronger than apple red, yellower, lighter, and stronger than carmine, and bluer, lighter, and...
A Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, listener has been pondering the saying It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good, and specifically whether she uses it correctly. The expression usually appears as It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good...
Stacey from Chelsea, Massachusetts, says her grandfather, a Russian immigrant who grew up on New York City’s Lower East Side, used to warn his grandkids with what sounded like Don’t be a come-upper after he’d cleaned the apartment. The...
Here’s a word from the 1600s that deserves more use: mirabiliary, which means “a person who deals in marvels or collects marvelous things,” from the Latin word for “wonder.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Mirabiliary”...
