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.
When you’re talking about the location of an inanimate object, is it okay to say that it lives there, as in The peanut butter lives in that cabinet or The flashlight lives on that shelf? Strictly speaking, of course, that object isn’t...
Sean in Oneonta, New York, says that when he was growing up in New Jersey, his family would pile in the car and set off on a surprise adventure, whether a short distance or long, and the kids would be told only that they were going on Buxtehude...
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