Matt from Memphis, Tennessee, reports that he had a professor who would acknowledge a complication to a task that made it more challenging by saying That makes the cheese a bit more binding, doesn’t it? The expression to make the cheese more binding can also have a positive meaning, suggesting that a situation’s been enhanced, as when a deal sweetener increases the odds of a successful negotiation. A version of the phrase appears in one of the most famous “Twilight Zone” episodes of all time. 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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