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...
In English, you might describe something easy to do as a cinch or a piece of cake. Several other languages employ tasty metaphors to convey a similar idea. In Brazilian Portuguese, you something easy can be described with an idiom that translates as...
Listeners are sharing their favorite terms for coffee that’s weak, including warm wet, branch water, pond water, scared water, and in the immortal words of Ani DiFranco, just water dressed in brown. One listener has a friend in North Dakota...
Robert in Oak Park, Illinois, seeks a Portuguese phrase he once heard that a man might say when the object of his affection is out of their league or otherwise forever unattainable. This wistful phrase is Ela é muita areia pro meu caminhãozinho or...
Aiya from Toronto, Canada, finds that whenever he moves to a new location, he adopts some of the local dialect, which feels a bit uncomfortable. At one point, for example, he found himself unable to recall if he used on accident or by accident to...
Julio from Frisco, Texas, asks about “do me a solid,” meaning “do me a favor,” after first hearing it in a context that made him wonder if it had something to do with bowel trouble. The phrase dates at least to the 1960s and appears to come from an...