Where’d we get the expression “You bet your sweet bippy!”? It’s from Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, a zany television show from the late 1960s. The word bippy, by the way, means “butt.” The phrase “You bet your sweet bippy” is a linguistic...
A listener wonders about the origin of the phrase “your father’s mustache,” akin to the phrase “go jump in a lake,” or “your mamma wears combat boots.” Grant explains that it may sound more familiar as...
Well, shut my mouth and call me Shirley! Butter my buns and call me a biscuit! Kurt in Grand Rapids shares several of these humorous imperatives. The roots of this snowclone, a reusable phrase template of the form do X to me and call me Y, probably...
A listener wonders why his girlfriend remarks “hubba-hubba” when he’s dressing up for the night. The flirty call had its heyday in the 1940s, when World War II soldiers would see a pretty lady walking down the street. Although no one’s sure of the...
Where do we get the phrase “be there or be square”? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Be There or Be Square” Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hi, this is Lorraine. I’m calling from Benita, California...
Really??? Really! A college student in Provo, Utah, says he’s hearing this expression of sarcastic incredulity more and more— even catching himself saying this to his cellphone when it dropped a call. He suspects it comes from Saturday Night...