Quiz Guy John Chaneski’s puzzle relies on voiced and unvoiced consonants, specifically the consonants D and T. One clue brings to mind a famous name with an unvoiced T sound in it, but also a clue to the name if you replace the voiced T with an...
Nikki in Charlotte, North Carolina, shares the story of a man who casually told passersby You dropped your pocket, prompting them to check for something that wasn’t there in the first place. That silly saying reminds her of playing pool and trying...
Alisa from Memphis, Tennessee, shares a story about her mother emerging from sedation after a significant head injury. Her mom’s first words were Let’s get down to brass tacks. The phrase means “Let’s get to the point” or “Let’s get down to...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski challenges you to unravel a mixed-up puzzle. Each clue contains an anagram of another word relevant to it. For example, in the sentence A rose garden grows deep in the heart of Texas, what word might be rearranged to form ar...
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...
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 (Bookshop|Amazon), E.B...

