A listener in Unadilla, New York, says her husband, whose family is French-Canadian, uses the phrase That burns my onions when something irritates him. There are several kitchen-related metaphors used to express anger, including that steams my clams, that fries my bacon, that burns my bacon, that burns my grits, or that frosts my cookies. However, in the case of burns my onions, the onions may function as a euphemism for similarly shaped body parts such as the buttocks or male genitalia, much like that burns my ass, scorches my ass, burns my butt, or burns my guts. This is part of a complete episode.
In English, you can express skepticism with the classic saying when pigs fly. In Tagalog, a similar sentiment is expressed with a phrase that translates “when the crow turns white, when the heron turns black,” and there’s a Hungarian phrase that...
Dax in Santa Cruz, California, wonders: Now that we’re into the 21st century, when will people stop saying that initial 20 when referring to a year such as 2028 the way we dropped the 19 in the term 1980s and just started referring to the ’80s? This...
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