A caller in Fort Laramie, Wyoming, refers to a roadside ditch as a borrow pit, as if the dirt dug from it was “borrowed” to form the raised surface of the road. It’s a misinterpretation of the original term, barrow pit, deriving...
It’s time for book recommendations! Martha’s enjoying an armchair tour of important places in the history of our language, and Grant recommends relaxing with books that make great reading for both children and adults. Plus, are you the...
An ailurophile from Dallas, Texas, wrote us to say her cat has a hobby of poking around in the closet and finding hidden nooks to nap in, or as she calls it, closeteering. That’s also a great term for generally digging around in the closet for...
Have a question about objective pronouns? Whom ya gonna call? Wait–is that right? Or would it be “who ya gonna call”? “Whom” may be technically correct, but insisting on it can get you called an elitist. It’s...
The idea of digging a hole to China surfaces as early as 1872 in a Chamber’s Journal fiction piece about beavers and engineers. Unfortunately, digging from almost anywhere in the United States would lead you to open water on the other end. To...
It’s been said that the most beautiful combination of words in English is cellar door. But why? After this caller raised the question, Grant did even more digging on the topic. The result: He wrote an article about it that appeared in the New...