A Kentucky listener wonders about the admonition I’m going to cut your water off, which she’s heard from parents disciplining a child, but might also used between adults. The phrase “to cut someone’s water off” has been...
After a long run, Angela in Dallas, Texas, remembered her mother’s instruction to wash your granny beads—clean the sweaty dirt that collects in the creases of the neck. The expression is associated especially with the United States South; another...
The threat I’m going to cloud up and rain all over you goes back to at least 1911. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Ima Cloud Up and Rain” We heard from Keith Johnston in Rosemead, California, and he writes, A...
There are two kinds of readers in the world: those who blow past a word they don’t know, and those who drop everything, run to the dictionary, and dig and dig until they figure out what in the world something like pagophilic means. Yes, we...
frailing n.— «Among country and bluegrass musicians, Mr. Martin is regarded as a master of a difficult five-fingered playing style known as clawhammer or frailing, in which the instrument’s strings are pushed down by fingernails, rather...