In English, you might describe something easy to do as a cinch or a piece of cake. Several other languages employ tasty metaphors to convey a similar idea. In Brazilian Portuguese, you something easy can be described with an idiom that translates as “a papaya with sugar.” A Dutch idiom literally translates as “a little egg,” and in Polish, you can say something’s easy with a phrase that translates as “a roll with butter.” Writer Adam Sharp has gathered these and other idioms in a book called The Wheel is Spinning But the Hamster is Dead: A Journey Around the World in Idioms, Proverbs and General Nonsense. (Amazon) This is part of a complete episode.
According to Gobsmacked: The British Invasion of American English (Bookshop|Amazon) by Ben Yagoda, the word smarmy, meaning “unctuous” or “ingratiating,” may come from a 19th-century magazine contest, in which readers sent in...
Mary Beth in Greenville, South Carolina, wonders: Why do we say four-oh-nine for the number 409 instead of four-zero-nine or four-aught-nine? What are the rules for saying either zero or oh or aught or ought to indicate that arithmetical symbol...
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