Mary in Charlotte, North Carolina, says that her parents used to refer to the time before she was born as back when you were chasing flies in Egypt, the equivalent of when you were just a twinkle in your mama’s eye or twinkle in your daddy’s eye. In The Front Room Boys the playwright Alez Buzo renders this idea as when you were a dirty look. In Australia, the same job is done by the phrase when you were still running up and down your father’s backbone. In Turkish, the expression Piyasada yoktun translates as “You weren’t in the market then,” means something similar. In Italian, there’s the poetic Eri ancora nel mondo della luna, which means “You were still in the world of the moon.” 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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