A flashlight doesn’t flash. It provides a steady beam of light. So why is it called a flashlight? The earliest versions lit up only briefly before the batteries gave out and required a recharge, so they were literally “flash lights.” Years later, in 1916, Eveready flashlight company held a nationwide contest to coin a new word for the new, improved version. The winning entry?Daylo. Obviously, daylo didn’t catch on. The old word, flashlight, stuck around in the United States, while in the United Kingdom, this illumination aid was called an electric torch or later, simply a torch.This is part of a complete episode.
The cardboard cylinder left after the last sheet of toilet, tissue, or wrapping paper comes off the roll has inspired families to make up a lot of names for the tube or the sounds you can make with it. These include oh-ah, oh-ah, drit-drit, dah-dah...
A native Texan says his Canadian wife teases him about his use of hitten for a past participle, as in You have hitten every green light instead of You have hit every green light. Charles Mackay’s 1888 work, A Dictionary of Lowland Scotch, does...
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