Brent from San Diego asks why the expression “keep your eyes peeled” uses peeled, and whether it has anything to do with birds of prey opening their eyes. The phrase is spelled P-E-E-L, and its likely 19th-century sense is simply that the eyelids...
Kent in Dallas grew up calling the groove between the nose and upper lip a berber, a childhood coinage that even a makeup-counter consultant briefly adopted. The standard anatomical word is philtrum, also called the infranasal depression. It comes...
What’s the name for that little dent in your upper lip? It’s called a “philtrum.” Martha reveals the erotic origins of this word, and proves once again that etymology is nothing if not sexy. Transcript of “The Love...