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Origin of “To Boot”

The saying “to boot” comes from an Old English word bot, meaning “advantage” or “remedy.” It’s related to the contemporary English words better and best, so if something’s “to boot,”...

Episode 1413

Catch My Fade

If you’re sending out party invitations, what’s a sure-fire way to get hold of everyone? Email? Snailmail? Facebook? Texting? Twitter? Or a plain old-fashioned phone call? Different folks have different communication preferences, and...

Words Derived from Old Places

A bunch of English words actually take from the names of old places: peach comes from Persia, bungalow refers to a house “of the Bengal type,” and laconic refers to the region of Sparta famous as a place where people valued speech that...

A Hole to China (episode # 1368)

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...

Now You’re Cooking with Gas

Some of us can’t go anywhere without a book or something to read. And one fast food joint hears you: Chipotle is now printing the work of famous writers on their paper cups. Speaking of fast food, saying that someone is two plums short of a...

Episode 1382

Catbird Seat

Online recaps of Mad Men or Breaking Bad can be as much fun as the shows themselves. So why not recap classic literature โ€” like, say, Dante’s Inferno? A literary website is doing just that. And, you’ve heard about the First World and the...

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