The expression to turn on a dime means “to change quickly.” Early on the phrase referred to horses or horse-drawn vehicles and later to motorized ones, and suggested the idea of changing direction quickly and easily without needing a large turning...
In Finland, the term pilkunviilaaja applies to someone who given to hairsplitting. This word for someone who’s “persnickety” literally means “comma-polisher” or “comma-filer.” The Finnish word pilkun means...
In Finland, there’s an old tradition of counting approximate distances in terms of poronkusema, literally “reindeer pee,” which is supposedly the distance a reindeer will travel between pit stops. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of...
Sauna is by far the most common everyday word adopted in English from Finnish. A distant second is sisu, a term for “grit” or “determination,” which is particularly associated with the hardiness and fortitude of Finns...
Frida in Marquette, Michigan, shares a proverb from her Finnish heritage that translates as “Until the food is ready, feed your guests with words.” She also asks about pank, a term she often hears there in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan...
In Norway, a popular bit of advice translates as “There’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes.” It’s sometimes given as “Det finst ikkje dårleg vêr, berre dårlege klede” and the idiom is also used in...
