A Green Bay Packers fan wonders why a quarterback who’s tackled is said to be sacked. The roots of the word sack as in “bag” goes back thousands of years, all the way to Akkadian, later spreading through Greek, Latin, and then to Romance and...
Sean, who is originally from Ireland, wonders if the term narrowback, which usually refers to second- or third-generation Irish-Americans, is considered a slur against the Irish. He also references an earlier conversation of ours about the term...
The phrase the land of the living goes back to passages in the Bible like Psalm 52:5. Since at least the 1700s, this expression has been used to denote the realm of those still alive. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Land of the...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski tees up a trivia quiz about how sports teams got their names. For example, are the Cleveland Browns so named because one of their founders was named Paul Brown, or because of the orange-brown clay on the banks of the Cuyahoga...
In rugby and soccer to kick into touch means to “kick a ball out of play.” The phrase by extension is used in British English mean to “take some kind of action so that a decision is postponed” or otherwise get rid of a problem. This is part of a...
A Forth Worth, Texas, listener who interviewed candidates for a head football coach position at a high school reports that out of eight interviewees, six of them used the phrase, “It’s not about the X’s and the O’s, it’s about the Jimmies and the...