Samantha from Charleston, South Carolina, says her mother and grandmother are of Italian heritage, and have always advised keeping one’s neck warm as a precaution against the malaria. That sort of consigli della nonna, or “Grandmother’s advice” stems from folklore associating mal aria — literally, “bad air,” with disease and pestilence. The life-threatening, infectious disease called malaria also derives from Italian for “bad air.” Before the rise of germ theory, people assumed that one could get sick from the “bad air” in swamps. This is part of a complete episode.
What makes a great first line of a book? How do the best authors put together an initial sentence that draws you in and makes you want to read more? We’re talking about the openings of such novels as George Orwell’s 1984...
To slip someone a mickey means to doctor a drink and give it to an unwitting recipient. The phrase goes back to Mickey Finn of the Lone Star Saloon in Chicago, who in the late 19th century was notorious for drugging certain customers and relieving...
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