Dan in South Bend, Indiana, wonders about the phrase good egg, meaning “a good-natured, kind person.” The expression good egg was preceded by bad egg, that is, a literal egg determined to be undesirable by viewing it close to a candle. Bad apple, on...
Miranda, a nurse in Altoona, Pennsylvania, had a patient who described her hospital food as the pits, meaning it wasn’t good. The expressions the pits and in the pits arose out of 1950s college slang, and derive from the notion of smelly...
Katie, a biology professor in San Diego, California, reports that her students use low-key in ways she’s not used to hearing, as in I was low-key lost in class today, meaning “I was sort of lost in class today.” Linguists Pamela...
Spondulix, also spelled spondulicks and spondolux, is a slang term for money. Mark Twain used it in Huckleberry Finn, although it had been around for a while before that. The word may derive from the Greek word spondylos, meaning “vertebra” or...
You pick up what you think a glass of water and take a sip, but it turns out to be Sprite. What’s the word for that sensation when you’re expecting one thing and taste something else? Also, slang from college campuses, like ratchet and...
A lunch hook, in college slang from a century ago, meant “a hand”–as in, “I’m going to hook my finger through this doughnut hole.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Lunch Hook” I bet...
