If someone’s extremely annoyed or frustrated, you describe them with the idiomatic expression they’re fit to be tied. But where did this saying come from? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Fit to Be Tied, But How, and To What?”...
Having a hard time with writer’s block? So did Gustave Flaubert while trying to get his great novel Madame Bovary (Bookshop|Amazon) underway, telling a correspondent: I am finding it hard to get my novel started. I suffer from stylistic abscesses;...
weird stacking n.— «Ms. Reel and others had noticed a curious byproduct of the parking experiment, a phenomenon perhaps already studied by transportation specialists. She called it “weird stacking,” the notion that cars left on a street create...
A Kentucky listener and her husband wonder about the proper meaning of the word everloving. Sometimes they hear it used to express frustration, as in, “Why won’t he pass the everloving basketball?”, but other times they hear it used more positively...
sidewalk alumni n.pl.— «The real alumni are great fans, root for their school, and support it no matter what. Those here that yell the loudest…brag the most…then bail at the first sign of trouble…are what I call the “Sidewalk Alumni” wannabees at...
le sigh n. an exaggerated interjection indicating frustration, resignation, yearning, weariness, etc. Editorial Note: Usually written, not spoken. Etymological Note: Usually attributed to the amorous French cartoon skunk Pepe Le Peu in the Looney...