The slang coming out of Victorian mouths was more colorful than you might think. A 1909 collection of contemporary slang records clever terms for everything from a bald head to the act of sidling through a crowd. Plus, how to remember the difference...
What’s so cool about bees’ knees, anyway? The bee’s knees, a phrase meaning “cool” or “great,” dates back to the flapper era of the 1920s. It relates to an old definition of the word “cute,” referring to something small and nicely formed. The knees...
A listener has spent the last 30 years looking for the origin of the playful phrase “you’re the berries.” This affectionate expression first appears in literature in the 1908 book Sorrows of a Showgirl, then made its way into popular slang by the...
What’s the origin of the expressions “word!” and “word up!”? Grant shares a theory from the book Black Talk by Geneva Smitherman. Here’s that Eighties-era song
A Green Bay, Wisconsin, caller is curious about her mother’s playful interjections. If someone said, “Well,” her mother would add, “Well, well. Three holes in the ground.” If someone started a sentence with “So” she’d interject, “Buttons on your...
walling n.— «NBC Nightly News noted that the memos provide “the fullest description yet of the techniques used by the CIA on roughly 30 detainees,” including “slapping, sleep deprivation, stress positions, nudity, something called...