An acclaimed poet’s tender poem about holding a newborn for the first time reflects a complex swirl of emotions. And: A caller finds that in her workplace, the expression out of pocket can mean very different things: either “being unavailable” or...
Do you refer to your dog or cat as “somebody”? As in: When you love somebody that much, you don’t mind if they slobber. In other words, is your pet a somebody or a something? Also, for centuries, there was little consistency in the...
Sure, there’s winter, spring, summer, and fall. But the seasons in between have even more poetic names. In Alaska, greenup describes a sudden, dramatic burst of green after a long, dark winter. And there are many, many terms for a cold snap...
A sumptuous new collection of poems about specific photographs shows how the moment in time captured by camera can inspire a verbal work of art as well. Also, why do we say that a quarterback got sacked? Plus, If you’re planning to vacation at a...
An Arkansas listener is puzzled when a neighbor notes that the weather turned off cold. This expression is part of a long-standing American dialect tradition that includes come off cold, come off hot, or turned off pretty. Such phrases show up...
Terry from Franklin, Indiana, recalls a moment of confusion when she was working on a horse farm in south-central Pennsylvania. She asked a co-worker, “Are we going to let the stallions out today?” The co-worker responded, “No...