Why do baseball announcers say that a pitcher who throws a high fast ball is bringing high cheese? The cheese might be related to big cheese, a term that in turn may go back to Hindi and related languages where chiz means “thing.” This...
Throwing cheese and shaky cheese are two very different things. In baseball, hard cheese refers to a powerful fastball, and probably comes from a similar-sounding word in Farsi, Urdu, and Hindi. Shaky cheese, on the other hand, is the grated...
Is there such a thing as a “neutral” accent, and if so what does it sound like? And that quirk in the way southern Californians talk about freeways. They’ll say things like take the 405 and get on the 8. Why the definite article...
If a baseball is hit really hard, it’s said that the batter powdered it, used to refer to hitting or pitching that’s especially powerful, as if the ball had been fired from a cannon. Similarly, a pitcher with a blistering fastball is...
Paul from Omaha, Nebraska, says as a result of watching the College World Series in that city, he and his son wondered when sports announcers started using the word cheese to describe a pitcher’s fastball, and such variants as throwing cheese...
Where would you find a sports commentator talking about high cheese and ducks on a pond? Here’s a hint: both terms are part of what makes America’s pastime so colorful. • A government official in New Zealand proposes a new, more...