Nancy Gabriel from Ithaca, New York, recalls her father’s no-nonsense responses to minor injuries when she was a child: After making sure she was really all right, he’d say, It’s far enough from your heart; it won’t kill you. Other times he might...
A listener named Tami contacted the show by WhatsApp to say that whenever someone would be talking about a subject that nobody else knew anything about, her father-in-law would respond with I had one of those, but the wheels came off. This is part...
Nathan in Raleigh, North Carolina, says his father described the process of cooking a big meal for the family as proceeding steady by jerks. This expression refers to a process that occurs by fits and starts or episodically. This is part of a...
Tricia in Chesapeake, Virginia, says if her father was annoyed with her mother, he used to jokingly tell her: Go sit on a tack! It’s another way of saying “Leave me alone!” Similar phrases include go fly a kite, go climb a tree, go chase yourself...
Decisions by dictionary editors, wacky wordplay, and Walt Whitman’s soaring verse. How do lexicographers decide which historical figures deserve a mention or perhaps even an illustration in the dictionary? The answer changes with the times. •...
The words we choose can change attitudes — and change lives. A swing-dance instructor has switched to gender-neutral language when teaching couples. He says that using words like “leader” and “follower” actually works better than using gendered...