Paul in Arlington, Texas, wonders about his grandmother’s response when he used to tell her he needed something. She’d say It needs be the devil meet. It’s likely a version of the older phrase He must needs go that the devil drives. In this case...
Mitchell from Arlington, Texas, wonders about his father’s expression: If a bullfrog had wings, he wouldn’t bump his butt. It’s been around since at least the early 1900s, and is a variation on an older expression, If pigs had wings, they could fly...
Ash from Arlington, Texas, says her great-aunt would refer to a red bump on one’s tongue as a lie bump. This expression is widespread enough to be used in medical textbooks, although papillitis is the official term, papillae being the anatomical...
Our discussion about grammagrams prompts listeners to send in several more stories from their workplaces. A high-school drama teacher in Arlington, Texas, reports that in the theater world, the letter Q is scribbled in scripts to mean cue. A...
Yikes! Come to think of it, what if the hokey pokey IS what it’s all about? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Hokey Pokey” We talked recently about the childhood game of taking the lyrics to familiar songs and making them much more...