A Washington, D.C., caller says her dad would console her with the saying “Don’t worry, it will be better before you’re married.” Which is really less a heartfelt consolation than it is a better way to say, get over it. The...
The Irish writer Roddy Doyle has some good advice about using a thesaurus: “Do keep a thesaurus, but in the shed at the back of the garden or behind the fridge, somewhere that demands travel or effort.” This is part of a complete episode.
The racial descriptor Black Dutch is sometimes used by people who want to disguise someone’s true ethnic origins. Black Irish and Black German are also used. This is part of a complete episode.
If someone is gobsmacked, they’re totally surprised. The term may come from the same Gaelic root that gave us the Everlasting Gobstopper. This is part of a complete episode.
Some speakers of American English use the word whenever to refer to a single event, as in “whenever Abraham Lincoln died.” This locution is a vestige of Scots-Irish speech. This is part of a complete episode.
Hi, all! In this week's archive episode, do you know the term "bike-shedding"? How about "tohubohu"? The former refers to being inappropriately focused on the minutiae of a project instead of the bigger picture (handy...