Ryan, a wildland firefighter from Asheville, North Carolina, asked about bagger, a derogatory term for “a lazy or amateur firefighter.” The term likely comes from military slang, where bagger is short for dirtbagger or S-bagger, most likely deriving...
While compiling the Oxford English Dictionary, lexicographer James Murray exchanged hundreds of letters a week with authors, advisors, and volunteer researchers. A new collection online lets you eavesdrop on discussions about which words should be...
Susan from Asheville, North Carolina, is surprised that fellow members of her writers’ group didn’t understand her use of the phrase I was on my ear meaning “I was upset.” This expression and variants of it have been around...
Tom in Washington, D.C., says his Airbnb host misunderstood his comment about the host’s crack team of helpers. He was using crack as a compliment, in the same way that a crack shot has good aim with a rifle, and a crack regiment of an army is...
In The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary (Bookshop|Amazon), Simon Winchester refers to piling Pelion upon Ossa, meaning “making a difficult situation even more difficult.” Pelion...
Sean in Asheville, North Carolina, wonders how to pronounce the nearby town of Leicester. Say it the way the locals do. It’s part of a family of British place names affected by vowel reduction and haplology, the omission of a sound or syllable...
