Chris in Omaha, Nebraska, asks about the use of the adjective husky to describe the boys’ clothing section in a department store. This coded term refers to clothes made for heavier fellows. Husky was originally a positive term connoting the...
Michael from Jones, Michigan, says he was stationed on a U.S. Army base in Germany in the early 1960s. If there was a gust of cold wind, a fellow soldier would say the hawk’s out. This expression is largely associated with Chicago, Illinois...
In a sweaty letter to a friend while vacationing on the island of Elba, poet Dylan Thomas wrote colorfully and expressively about a terrible heat wave, complaining that, among other things, “My brains are hanging out like a dog’s tongue...
Carmen in Jacksonville, Florida, was told she was pretty as a speck of puff. The more common simile is pretty as a speckled pup or cute as a speckled pup. This is part of a complete episode.
The German word Zaunkönig means “wren,” but literally translates as “king of the fence.” This is part of a complete episode.
The Kong in the name of the 1933 movie King Kong, probably alludes to the Congo in Africa, the home of gorillas. Previous movies used a form of that name as well; Kongorilla, for example. In the 1950s, the English name of the Japanese movie monster...