Margaret from Huntsville, Alabama, says her mother used to tell her to hurry up by saying to get something done with a burning needle and a hot thread. The more common expression is with a hot needle and burning thread, meaning to do something “quickly” or in a “slapdash manner.” Bob Willis and the Texas Playboys used it that way in their 1952 recording of “A Red Hot Needle.” In parts of the Caribbean, hot needle burn thread alludes to something done in haste, as in That wedding got to be hot needle burning thread because the bride is already pregnant. This is part of a complete episode.
What makes a great first line of a book? How do the best authors put together an initial sentence that draws you in and makes you want to read more? We’re talking about the openings of such novels as George Orwell’s 1984...
To slip someone a mickey means to doctor a drink and give it to an unwitting recipient. The phrase goes back to Mickey Finn of the Lone Star Saloon in Chicago, who in the late 19th century was notorious for drugging certain customers and relieving...
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