The writer Clay Shirky tipped us off to a morbid bit of slang used in the dying business of print newspapers, where obituaries are referred to as subscriber countdowns. This is part of a complete episode.
The writer Clay Shirky tipped us off to a morbid bit of slang used in the dying business of print newspapers, where obituaries are referred to as subscriber countdowns. This is part of a complete episode.
The English language has a variety of expressions referring to the excretion of moisture from the skin due to heat. There’s the verb perspire and the Yiddish borrowing schvitz. If you perspire profusely, you may sweat buckets, or be sweating like a...
A Havertown, Pennsylvania, listener wonders why her mother used to answer queries about how she was doing with phrase that sounded like either fair to midland or fair to middling. Middling has long meant “just OK” or “right in the middle,” and the...