Brian in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, reports hearing an older person talk about getting the receipt for a dish, using the word receipt in the same way that others might use the word recipe. The use of receipt as a synonym for recipe, as in “a set of cooking instructions,” is fading out, but is still occasionally heard. Both words go back to the Latin word recipere, meaning “to take,” but entered English at different times. Receipt is the older term, originally denoting “the act of receiving something.” Recipe is the Latin imperative form of recipere, and was inscribed at the top of a list of instructions for a medicinal preparation. There’s a vestige of this usage in the abbreviation ℞, now seen on pharmaceutical prescriptions. 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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