Alicia from Prairieville, New York, has a dispute with her new husband over the word over. She said, I’m going over to visit my dad, and he argued that because her father lives southeast of them, she should say going down to visit her dad. Is word over properly used to suggest directions that could be described more specifically? Prepositions in any language are tricky. Linguist John Taylor has written about meaning in such cases in terms of end points — and in this case, both speaker and hearer knew the starting point and end point under discussion, so the meaning was clear. 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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