A Kentucky listener wonders about the admonition I’m going to cut your water off, which she’s heard from parents disciplining a child, but might also used between adults. The phrase “to cut someone’s water off” has been around since at least the 1930s. In the early 1950s, received a boost in popularity from country-music singer Toby Dowdy’s rendition of the song “I’d Cut Your Water Off.” Elaborations of this expression include I’ll cut your water off and take the meter out and I’ll cut your water off and read your meter. This is part of a complete episode.
According to Gobsmacked: The British Invasion of American English (Bookshop|Amazon) by Ben Yagoda, the word smarmy, meaning “unctuous” or “ingratiating,” may come from a 19th-century magazine contest, in which readers sent in...
Mary Beth in Greenville, South Carolina, wonders: Why do we say four-oh-nine for the number 409 instead of four-zero-nine or four-aught-nine? What are the rules for saying either zero or oh or aught or ought to indicate that arithmetical symbol...
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