The term pigs, in reference to police officers, comes from England’s underground criminal slang and shows up in the early 1800s. It refers to pigs as vile creatures that take more than their share, akin to police officers who would take the illicit...
Cobwebs are spiderwebs, especially the dusty, abandoned kind that need sweeping away. Middle English coppe or cop meant “spider” or “round thing,” and cob survives mostly in this compound. A related old word, attercop, combines a word for “poison”...
For language lovers, it’s like New Year’s, Fourth of July, and the Super Bowl all rolled into one: The brand-new online edition of the Dictionary of American Regional English. Martha and Grant explain what all the fuss is about. Plus, the debate...
DYKWIA n.— «“Bill probably gave the cop the old ‘don’t you know who I am’ routine and pissed him/her off.” “I don’t know how ya’ll respond to DYKWIA in California, but in Nashville, nothing will get you nowhere quicker than that phrase.”» —“Re:...
