Jacuzzi and silhouette are eponyms — that is, they derive from the names of people. An Italian immigrant to California invented the bubbly hot tub called a jacuzzi. And the word silhouette commemorates a penny-pinching treasury secretary who lasted...
Madison in Wilmington, North Carolina, says that whenever her family was about to leave the house, her grandfather would tell them to take Churchill’s advice, which they all understood to be a reminder to use the bathroom before setting out...
Polly from Issaquah, Washington, grew up in Washington, D.C., where she and her family used the term food store to mean “grocery store.” However, a friend from the Midwest teases her about this. Does anyone else call a grocery store a...
One of our favorite new reference works is The New Yale Book of Quotations (Bookshop|Amazon) edited by Fred Shapiro, associate director for collections and access at the Yale Law Library. This volume is a vastly expanded version of the previous...
She sells seashells by the seashore. The shells she sells are seashells I’m sure, so if she sells seashells on the seashore, then I’m sure she sells seashore shells. Some claim that this tongue twister is about the early life of 19th...
The term blind creek refers to evidence of a waterway that’s dried up, although water can still be found if you dig far enough. It’s one of more than 800 terms defined in Home Ground: A Guide to the American Landscape. This is part of a...