It’s time for book recommendations! Martha’s enjoying an armchair tour of important places in the history of our language, and Grant recommends relaxing with books that make great reading for both children and adults. Plus, are you the...
Spit baths are quick cleanups with a moistened tissue, napkin, or towel, the sort Lee in Arcadia, Indiana, remembers getting before going out in public. Another listener recalls a University of Tennessee fraternity term from the late 1950s: SAE...
Bogart, meaning to hog or monopolize something, does trace back to actor Humphrey Bogart. The verb first meant to bully or intimidate, as in forcing your way into a club, and dates to about the 1950s. By the late 1960s it had shifted toward taking...
ledge party n.— «After the usual alcoholic overindulgence, I followed him upstairs, where I soon passed out on his sofa. There, I assumed the starring role in a garden-variety “ledge party,” my deflowering on display for anyone desiring a...
pig night n.— «One of its disgusted members told me of its annual practice called “pig night” when pledges were sent out to find “ugly townie girls” to be invited to a big Yale party—at midnight they were told, now illegally liquored up...
liftoff n.— «“Liftoff” in headhunter speak, or team movement in common parlance, is the latest buzzword that’s creating a stir in India Inc, especially in the financial sector.…Recently, four key executives from JM Financial...