Jamie from Calais, Vermont, says an unfortunate experience with an insect made her wonder about the expression to put a bug in your ear or put a bug in one’s ear, meaning “to make a strong, insistent suggestion to someone.” An older expression, to...
Cecily from Indianapolis, Indiana, recalls her North Carolina-born grandmother would describe someone doing something stupid as being crazy as a betsy bug. The phrase alludes to the horned beetle, also known as the patent-leather beetle, a large...
Ever seen a bug so big it could stand flat-footed and kiss a turkey? Kathy from Greensboro, North Carolina, called to share some classic idioms her Georgia grandmother would use to describe bugs, like those gallon-nipper mosquitos and Chatham County...
dog n.— «Programming and films on digital TV channels are, he complains, routinely disfigured by irrelevant and unnecessary captions and graphic devices and, in particular, by “dogs” (digital on-screen graphics) or “bugs” identifying the channel...
bug n.— «Programming and films on digital TV channels are, he complains, routinely disfigured by irrelevant and unnecessary captions and graphic devices and, in particular, by “dogs” (digital on-screen graphics) or “bugs” identifying the channel...
bug n.— «The Boston terrier-pug mix, a combination affectionately known as a “bug,” was a recent arrival at the Moncton SPCA.» —“Who’s stealing Moncton’s dogs?” by Oliver Moore Globe and Mail (Toronto, Canada) July 15, 2008. (source: Double-Tongued...

