In parts of the United States, cottage cheese is called smearcase, from German Schmierkäse, a combination of schmieren, “smear,” and Käse, “cheese.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Smearcase, Schmierkäse” You have a...
Why do baseball announcers say that a pitcher who throws a high fast ball is bringing high cheese? The cheese might be related to big cheese, a term that in turn may go back to Hindi and related languages where chiz means “thing.” This...
Throwing cheese and shaky cheese are two very different things. In baseball, hard cheese refers to a powerful fastball, and probably comes from a similar-sounding word in Farsi, Urdu, and Hindi. Shaky cheese, on the other hand, is the grated...
Matt from Memphis, Tennessee, reports that he had a professor who would acknowledge a complication to a task that made it more challenging by saying That makes the cheese a bit more binding, doesn’t it? The expression to make the cheese more...
According to Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe, it’s important to master the basics of writing, but there comes a time when you have to strike out on your own and teach yourself. Also: Spanish idioms involving food, a conversation about the...
Bill calls from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, to say his late wife, who was from South Milwaukee, Wisconsin, would jokingly tell him You talk like a sausage! What exactly did she mean? Although Germans have many expressions that include the word...