Home » Animal Kingdom » Humming Along — Like It’s Covered in Flies?

Humming Along — Like It’s Covered in Flies?

On a busy day in the emergency room, Alisa of Dallas, Texas, told an efficient colleague that she was really humming, meaning it as a compliment. Her colleague took offense, maintaining that humming meant “smelly.” Since the 18th century, English speakers in the UK have used humming to mean “stinking,” probably a reference to the busy, buggy nature of a manure or compost heap. This is part of a complete episode.

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

More from this show

Stranger With a Strange Word: Grok

Debbie from Crawfordsville, Florida, says that when she and her husband reach an impasse while working on something, they’ll say Let’s grok about it, which they use to mean “Let’s think about it.” Grok was coined by...

Recent posts