The exclamation shiver me timbers! has nothing to do with being cold. A different verb shiver means “to shatter into small pieces,” and timbers refers to the wooden beams that make up the structure of a ship’s hull and ribs. Sailors once used phrases like may God smite my timbers! or may God split my timbers! or simply my timbers! as a kind of mild oath, invoking one of the worst things that can happen to someone at sea. In Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island (Bookshop|Amazon), Long John Silver also says things like shiver my sides! and shiver my soul!This is part of a complete episode.
The so-called “lifestyle influencer accent” you hear in videos on TikTok and YouTube, where someone speaks with rising tones at the end of sentences and phrases, suggesting that they’re about to say something important, is a form of what linguists...
Meg in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, gets why the state highway department encourages drivers to use their blinkers when changing lanes, but placing a digital sign at the Sagamore Bridge that reads Use Ya Blinkah is, well, a lexical bridge too far. Meg’s...
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