Katherine from Allentown, Pennsylvania, remembers her grandmother teaching her to say Lucky lucky white horse, ding ding ding! whenever a white horse pulling a delivery wagon passed her house. After each ding, they were supposed to lick their left...
Diane, a bridge player from Wilmington, North Carolina, asks about sitting with the bathtub, a phrase her friend uses for a lopsided game where one pair keeps getting the good cards. The phrase appears in newspaper columns about bridge starting in...
Carpe diem! A new book reveals the surprisingly unfamiliar stories behind familiar quotations. Also: Rock climbers have gumbies, and surfers have kooks. What do those words say about beginners who have more confidence than experience? Plus, if...
Alan Connor serves as crossword puzzle editor for The Guardian, and his new book is a word lover’s delight. It’s called 188 Words for Rain: A Delightfully Damp Tour of the British Isles Led by Natural Forces (Amazon). The book opens 7,000 feet above...
Brownie points, or “credit earned for good behavior or useful effort,” was probably popularized by a fanciful 1951 Los Angeles Times column about how husbands supposedly score points on an invisible domestic scorecard by doing household chores. The...
Kelly from Butte, Montana, recalls that when a few morsels remained at the end of a meal, her grandmother would say, Make it a nice day tomorrow, meaning everyone should eat all their food. A version used by a childhood friend’s family was...
