Aaron in Los Angeles, California, notes while using public transit in Britain he and other passengers were instructed to alight from the front, meaning “exit the car from the front.” Alight comes from an Old English word alihtan, literally, to...
Chad in Hilliard, Florida, wonders about the expression old as Methuselah, meaning “extremely advanced in years.” The phrase references Methuselah, a figure in Jewish, Islamic, and Christian tradition said to be 969 years old when he finally gave up...
In another episode, we discussed the apparent lack of a single English word that means “give someone something to drink” in the same way that feed means to “give someone food to eat.” A listener points out that in Hebrew, that function is fulfilled...
The term land of Nod, a joking reference to sleep, has its origins in the biblical Nod, to which Cain was exiled after murdering his brother Abel. Jonathan Swift first used it that way in his 1738 work, A Complete Collection of Genteel and Ingenious...
God is a baseball fan, according to one of our listeners. It’s right there in Genesis, where it talks about what happened in the big inning. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “The Big Inning” Grant, you will recall that I was telling...
How did Nimrod, the name of a mighty hunter and a great grandson of Noah, come to mean a lamebrain idiot? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Nimrod” Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hi. Hi, who’s this? Hi, this is Kathy. Hi, Kathy...