“What has a head like a cat, feet like a cat, a tail like a cat, but isn’t a cat?” Answer: a kitten! A 1948 children’s joke book has lots of these to share with kids. Plus: an easy explanation for the difference between...
When there’s no evening meal planned at home, what do you call that scramble to cobble together your own dinner? Some people apply acronyms like YOYO — “you’re on your own” — or CORN, for “Clean Out your Refrigerator...
John, a Navy veteran in San Diego, California, shares some pranks played on new recruits. One involves sending a newbie to the boatswain’s locker for ten yards of gig line. In military jargon, a gig line is the imaginary line from the middle...
Jenny from Portland, Oregon, is fascinated by the language of falconers. In falconry, the word bate means “to flap the wings impatiently.” A similarly spelled verb, which has nothing to do with falconry, figures in the expression to wait...
Gabrielle in Beloit, Michigan, is puzzled about why we refer to the zipper on a pair of pants as a fly. The term originally referred not to the zipper itself, but the flap that goes over it, like the fly that protects the entrance to a tent. This is...
In the 17th century, the verb to bate and the likely related verb, to bat, were used in falconry to mean “to flap wildly.” By the 19th century, to bat was also part of the phrase to bat one’s eyelashes. This is part of a complete...