In Appalachia, if you ignore better choices before choosing a lesser one, such as a mate, you might be said to fly all over a daisy field and settle on a cow pile or flit like a butterfly from flower to flower and land on a cow crap. This is part of...
After our conversation about whoopsy-daisy and other terms for a sudden dip in the road, Jane in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, reports that she’s heard people in Wisconsin and Minnesota refer to such a dip as a hoopla. This is part of a complete episode...
Linda from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, gives directions to her remote home by telling people to turn left after the whoopsy-daisy, her term for a sudden dip in the road. There are quite a few colloquial expressions for such abrupt depression or...
In just seconds, online text generators and chatbots can produce whole paragraphs of sophisticated prose. But what do advances in artificial intelligence mean for writers? What is lost and what’s gained when machine-writing replaces the work humans...
Today’s most popular dog names are Max and Bella. In the Middle Ages, though, dogs would answer to names like Amiable. Or Nosewise. Or even … Clench. ? Is the term redneck derogatory? Some folks proudly claim that name. They say it’s high time they...
The term daisy-cutting, which refers to the low-action trot of Arabian and Thoroughbred horses, is reminiscent of the low grounder in baseball known as a daisy cutter and even the daisy cutter explosive, which shoots low-flying shrapnel. This is...

