Martha from Rock Hill, South Carolina, wonders about the phrase She’s got the botts, meaning “she’s pouting.” The botts, also spelled the bots, refers to “a general malaise or moody spell,” and the bot in this case is the same bot in the botfly, a...
Imagine telling someone how to get to your home, but without using the name of your street, or any other street within ten miles. Could you do it? We take street names for granted, but these words are useful for far more, like applying for a job or...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski has been pondering those old digital displays on car dashboards that sometimes cut off part of the name of the song playing on the radio. For example, what song would really be playing if the truncated title was “Brother, Can...
What do you call the edge of the crust left on a pizza once you’ve eaten through the part with all the toppings? Some people refer to this as a dough-lip, a pizza bone, or a pizza handle, or a pizza rind. It’s also been called the dashboard. In...
In German, the electronic dashboard display on a car has a picturesque name. It’s Mäusekino, literally, “mouse cinema.” The Hungarian term for “mouse cinema,” egérmozi, is often applied to various kinds of small electronic displays, such as the...
Gerald from Gaspee Point, Rhode Island, wants to know the story behind the term dashboard. Originally a dashboard was wood or leather placed at the front in horse-drawn vehicles to keep the driver and passengers from being dashed with mud, water, or...
