Rodrigo in Tucson, Arizona, shares a funny story about immigrating to the United States from Mexico in the 1990s and picking up the English exclamation gee whiz! from a book published in the 1940s. What’s the origin of this slang phrase? Minced oaths such as gee whiz, gee whittaker, and gee willigans are all minced oaths, most likely distantly adapted from Jerusalem! or By Jerusalem!, and all of them being a means of avoiding the blasphemous use of Jesus! or Jesus Christ!This is part of a complete episode.
When you’re talking about the location of an inanimate object, is it okay to say that it lives there, as in The peanut butter lives in that cabinet or The flashlight lives on that shelf? Strictly speaking, of course, that object isn’t...
Sean in Oneonta, New York, says that when he was growing up in New Jersey, his family would pile in the car and set off on a surprise adventure, whether a short distance or long, and the kids would be told only that they were going on Buxtehude...
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