Rebecca from San Diego, California, wants to know the origin of the verb to bogart, as in “Don’t bogart that salad dressing!” meaning “don’t hog it” or “don’t use it all up.” The slang comes from the tough-guy screen persona of Humphrey Bogart, not...
Has the age of email led to an outbreak of exclamation marks? Do women use them more than men? Also, is there a word for the odd feeling when you listen to a radio personality for years, then discover that they look nothing like your mental picture...
Bogart, meaning to hog or monopolize something, does trace back to actor Humphrey Bogart. The verb first meant to bully or intimidate, as in forcing your way into a club, and dates to about the 1950s. By the late 1960s it had shifted toward taking...
