In Australia and New Zealand, to get off your bike means to “lose your temper or become agitated”, and Don’t get off your bike is a way of saying “Calm down.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “In Australia...
Amid a 1796 heat wave, Jane Austen wrote to her sister, “What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps me in a continual state of inelegance.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Jane Austen’s Continual State of Inelegance in a...
Mary from Greensboro, North Carolina, asks about an expression her Canadian mother used when Mary’s room looked particularly messy: A cow couldn’t find her calf in here! The more common A cow couldn’t find its calf in this room! was popularized by...
Jolly on the spot is a variant of Johnny on the spot, though the former is much less common. Both phrases refer to someone who’s right there when you need them and always ready to help. Older still is Charlie on the spot, used as early as 1805. The...
Novelist Charles Dickens and the musician Prince were very different types of artists, but they also had a lot in common. A new book chronicling their extraordinary careers becomes a larger meditation on perfectionism and creativity itself. Plus...
Margie from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, says that sometimes her childhood behavior scared the daylights out of her mother, but she never understood exactly what that actually meant beyond giving her mother a terrible fright. In the past, the word...