A mangle is an old device for squeezing water from laundry. In 19th-century England, this word figured in the discourteous catchphrase Has your mother sold her mangle? The question implies that the person addressed has to make ends meet by selling...
Joe Messina from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, wonders about the saying That’s it, Fort Pitt, meaning “That’s the end of it” or “We’re done.” The phrase goes back to a slogan for the Fort Pitt Brewing Company...
Roger from New Orleans, Louisiana, recalls that at odd moments in a conversation his father-in-law would toss in a puzzling non sequitur: I had one gunch, but the eggplant over there. That was probably a misunderstanding or misremembering of the...
Elizabeth from New Orleans, Louisiana, is pondering the way catchphrases such as Matthew McConaughey’s Alright, alright, alright catch on and get passed around. These vocal memes or prosodic memes get repeated and passed around in a way that...
Some TV commercials launch catchphrases that stick around long after the original ads. The exclamation Good stuff, Maynard! is still a compliment almost 40 years after it was used in a commercial for Malt-O-Meal hot cereal. And: what do you call...
After our conversation about nighttime wakefulness, a Sacramento, California, woman shares the funny story behind the term she and her husband use for that phenomenon: squeegee. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Nighttime...
