In English, the tip of the iceberg refers metaphorically to a small visible part of something immense. In Afrikaans, there’s a phrase suggesting the same thing that translates as “the tips of the hippo’s ears.” This is part of a complete episode.
A listener in Colby, Wisconsin, says that growing up, she called a drink with ice cream in root beer a black cow. But when she moved to Wisconsin, she found that the locals called the same beverage a root beer float. The era of drugstore fountains...
A Vietnamese phrase suggesting the impossibility of something occurring translates as “when the loach lays eggs at the top of the banyan tree,” a loach being a bottom-dwelling fish. This is part of a complete episode.
Lydia in Portland, Maine, was texting someone about having seen an opossum, but wasn’t quite sure how to write that out with the article. Is it a or an opposum? Like most Americans, she drops the initial unstressed syllable, making it sound like...
In Italian, a giacca civetta, or “owl jacket,” is a slang term for a jacket left on the back of an office chair to create the illusion that someone is still at their desk while they are actually out. This is part of a complete episode.
Andrea in West Palm Beach, Florida, recalls a little ditty that her father would recite to get her out of bed in the morning: When in the morning you throw moments away, you can’t make them up in the course of the day. Or you can hurry and...