The German phrase Der Bus hält an jeder Milchkanne literally translates as “The bus stops at every milk can,” and refers to a bus that stops at every little out-of-the-way town. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of...
A listener in Helena, Montana, shares a followup to our conversation about the question Do you live around here or ride a bicycle? A similarly goofy expression goes Is it further to Butte or by bus? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of...
Mary in Alexandria, Virginia, wonders when words like senior and senior citizen came to mean “elderly.” Senior comes from Latin senex, “old,” the source also of Senate and senile. In the 1930s, a politician helped popularize...
You’re waiting for a bus. You wait, and then you wait some more. Finally, two or three buses show up at once, all headed for the same destination. Public transportation professionals have a term for this — several, in fact: bus bunching, clumping...
A Texas caller says her West Virginia-born mother uses the word hornicaboogery to mean “germs” or “the creeping crud.” Among the many such joking names for imaginary illnesses are gollywobbles, collywobbles, carlymarbles...
Tom in Canton, Texas, remembers fellow high school students in Israel saying in Arabic that they were taking bus number 11, a joking way to mean walking. The image is right there in the numerals: the two straight 1s look like a pair of legs, much...