Candace from Memphis, Tennessee, wonders about the phrase You’re eating me out of house and home. The emphatic doublet house and home is part of a long tradition that includes scared out of house and home and chased out of house and home. Even earlier than that, eaten out of house and harbor communicated the same idea. In Italian, someone may be described with the equivalent of eating like a wolf. In Brazil, they’re eating like a locust. In Spanish, someone might be eating like a new metal file (the rasp-like tool). In German, someone ravenous will be eating the hair off your head. In Arabic, someone is said to have eaten the camel and all it carried. In Dutch and Bulgarian, they eat the ears off your head. This is part of a complete episode.
When your server brings food to the table and inquires as to who ordered which dish, that’s informally known in the restaurant biz as auctioning. If your meal is delayed because the person who took your order forgot about it, that’s called a...
Yasha, who grew up speaking Russian, recalls phrase used to comfort a child after a small mishap like a skinned knee. The phrase translates as “It will heal in time for the wedding,” and Yasha had assumed it was solely Slavic. So he was surprised to...
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