What’s a gongoozler? Today a gongoozler is anyone who just stands around watching things, but the term originated in the slang of British canal workers, who specifically applied it to onlookers inordinately interested in their work. A 1904 glossary...
Thomas from Huntsville, Alabama, was baffled when his Ohio-born fiancée told him she was going to sweep the house, then proceeded to use a vacuum cleaner. Is she the only person who calls a vacuum cleaner a sweeper? This is part of a complete...
A member of our Facebook group reports that her mother used to deride a privileged and expensively dressed woman with the phrase, Oh, she thinks she’s so katish! Used since the 1890s in the North Central part of the United States, katish or catish...
The expressive word kench is obsolete, but in the 13th century, it meant “to laugh loudly.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Kench with Me Outside” Here’s a word that I think is worth reviving. It’s kinch, k-e-n-c-h. To kinch in...
The phrase fight the good fight, which means to “try one’s best” and “attempt to do what’s right,” is inspired by the second of the epistles to Timothy attributed to the apostle Paul: “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have...
Chris in Omaha, Nebraska, asks about the use of the adjective husky to describe the boys’ clothing section in a department store. This coded term refers to clothes made for heavier fellows. Husky was originally a positive term connoting the idea of...
