Matthew in Cincinnati, Ohio, says his grandfather used to refer to his car as the machine. Around the turn of the 20th century, it wasn’t uncommon to apply the term machine to automobiles. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of...
Kathy from Jamestown, North Dakota, has long used the phrase flat as a flivver to describe something flat. The term flivver dates back to the early 1900s; it originally referred to something that failed, such as a business or theatrical show...
Mark from Lewiston, Texas, remembers old cartoons where a someone would roll down the window of a car and yell at a pokey motorist, Sunday driver! But why Sunday as opposed to any other day of the week? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript...
The word vintage, from the Latin word vinum “wine,” originally applied to the yield of vineyard during a specific season or a particular place. Over time, vintage came to be applied to automobiles and eventually to clothing. The term...
On a previous episode, we discussed the origins of doozy, and boy did we get some responses! Many of you called and wrote to say that the Duesenberg luxury car is the source of the term. While the car’s reputation for automotive excellence may...
On wordorigins.org, etymologist Dave Wilton is going through the Oxford English Dictionary year by year to find the earliest citations for various words, which offer an unusual linguistic glimpse into that particular year. The year 1937, for...