Tim from Kalamazoo, Michigan, reports his dad used to say You can give them books and give them books, but they just chew the covers right off. He’d use this expression when he felt someone wasn’t following instructions or failing to understand an explanation. This saying is usually applied to people failing to appreciate what they’ve been given. Variations include: You send them to school, you buy them, the books, and what do they do? They eat the books and I buy books and books and all you do is chew the covers. In 1949, a newspaper columnist joked: The folks keep sending me to school, but all I do is eat the covers off the books. Bookworm, you know. The expression has been around for decades, and might be as simple as a reference to an infant chewing the cover of a board book to relieve sore gums. Another possibility is that this notion originated in the wacky craze of competitive eating during the 1930s and 1940s, where college students showed off by eating live goldfish, worms, the leather covers off of baseballs, and yes, magazine covers. This is part of a complete episode.
In English, you can express skepticism with the classic saying when pigs fly. In Tagalog, a similar sentiment is expressed with a phrase that translates “when the crow turns white, when the heron turns black,” and there’s a Hungarian phrase that...
Dax in Santa Cruz, California, wonders: Now that we’re into the 21st century, when will people stop saying that initial 20 when referring to a year such as 2028 the way we dropped the 19 in the term 1980s and just started referring to the ’80s? This...
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