A silly joke about a parrot made the rounds of 19th-century American newspapers and may be the source for our expression “cry uncle,” meaning “to give up.” The anecdote features a boastful owner who orders a pet parrot to speak the word “uncle,” but...
Nathan from Abilene, Texas, asked for a dolly at a London trade-show venue and got blank looks until he described the device, which the workers called a trolley. Names for these wheeled haulers vary even in the United States: for some people, a...
