The expression to turn on a dime means “to change quickly.” Early on the phrase referred to horses or horse-drawn vehicles and later to motorized ones, and suggested the idea of changing direction quickly and easily without needing a large turning...
Mark in Scranton, Pennsylvania, calls about a phrase he heard on an old detective show: drop a dime. It means “to inform on someone” or “tip off the police,” and comes from the practice of literally dropping a dime into a...
Jennifer in Andrews, South Carolina, is curious about the term case quarter, meaning “a single 25-cent coin — not two dimes and a nickel and not five nickels.” It’s heard mainly in South Carolina, particularly among African...
The slang phrase XYZ, meaning “examine your zipper,” has been used since at least the 1960s as a subtle tipoff to let someone know his zipper is down. A variant, XYZ PDQ, means “examine your zipper pretty darn quick.” Other surreptitious suggestions...
“If you come to a fork in the road… take it!” Baseball legend Yogi Berra was famous for such head-scratching observations. What most people don’t realize, though, is that the former Yankees star often wasn’t the first...
It’s common for Southern moms to promise their children a Yankee dime if they complete a chore. The thing is a Yankee dime is a motherly kiss — much less exciting than an actual dime. It’s a phrase that plays on Yankee thrift, and...
