Rachel from Harrogate, Tennessee, says when she was growing up in the Cincinnati, Ohio, area, she and her fellow musicians used the term B-flat as slang for “ordinary” or “average.” In the 1938 publication New York Panorama, a guidebook to New York...
Our Quiz Guy John Chaneski, who belongs to the National Puzzlers’ League, brought us a game inspired by the league’s newsletter. In this game, based on head-to-tail shifts, the first letter of a word moves to the back to form a new word, so if a...
Martha tells the story of the creepy, spooky, surreal, and downright weird Robert Burns poem behind the name for that flat hat called a tam. Read it in translation here. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Tam Hat” Hello, you have A...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski’s latest puzzle requires players to guess the last word in a two-line verse. For example: “He’s seven feet tall and big as a tank, The meanest Marine that you’ve ever BLANK.” (Stumped? Take a letter out of “seven.”) This is...
chipping n.— «Almost every time Cole lines up across the left tackle, he’s got a tight end to deal with, too. Running backs also take a quick shot at him before releasing into the flat—a technique called chipping.» —“Eagles ends still looking for...
float v.— «Verts doesn’t consider himself a doctor, anyway. He’s a horse floater, one who “floats,” or files down, teeth. Some say floaters got their name from their partiality to drifting about the country. Others think they were named for the...
