One means of hazing newbies in the Army: send them to get a hundred feet of chow line. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “A Hundred Feet of Chow Line” We had a message from Ernest Pemberton who wanted to tell us about...
If your last name is Cook or Smith, your ancestors probably worked in those professions. But what if your last name is Pope? Or Abbott? And if you have enough food for Coxey’s army, you have more than enough to go around. The phrase refers to...
Haddie from Houston, Texas, is curious about the phrase as long as Pat stayed in the Army, which applies to something short-lived. The phrase appears in Kentucky newspapers as early as 1898. No one’s sure who Pat was, although perhaps...
Bill in Surrey, New Hampshire, says his father used to tell him to hold tightly to something, such as a rope, by urging him to muckle on to it. He rarely heard the word again until a Scotsman visited his farm and admiringly noted that Bill’s...
A man in Surprise, Arizona, wonders why people jumping into a pool sometimes yell “Geronimo!” The history of this exclamation goes back to an eponymous 1939 movie about the famed Apache warrior Geronimo. The film was popular on U.S. military bases...
If something’s got you feeling ate up, then you might be consumed by the notion that it didn’t go perfectly. You’re overwhelmed, obsessed, or maybe you’re just exhausted. However, among members of the Air Force, ate up has...