Patrick in New York City is curious about the term ride or die, which describes a friend, fan, or romantic partner who is devoted to the end. The expression shows up in the mid-1990s in hip hop and the work of Tupac Shakur and The Lox, and often...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski has been shopping at stores with misleading names. For example, he might buy baked goods from a bakery, but if he were to visit a store that sells flying mammals, he might assume it has something to do with power cells. What...
A Francophone who’s feeling low might say so with J’ai le moral dans les chaussettes. The idiom avoir le moral dans les chaussettes means “to have morale in your socks.” This is part of a complete episode.
The word larruping and its many variant spellings is often used to describe delicious food. The verb larrup means to “beat” or “strike,” and larruping (often spelled with the G dropped: larrupin’) is used as an intensifier...
People might never know that quality jazz exists outside the city of Baton Rouge. Which may be true—but it’s also a pangram. This is part of a complete episode.
A resident of Michigan’s scenic Beaver Island shares the term, boodling, which the locals use to denote the social activity of leisurely wandering the island, often with cold fermented beverages. There have been various proposed etymologies...