If you want to be a better writer, try skipping today’s bestsellers, and read one from the 1930’s instead. Or read something besides fiction in order to find your own metaphors and perspective. Plus, just because a city’s name...
The phrase “You’re not the boss of me” may have been popularized by the They Might Be Giants song that serves as the theme for TV’s “Malcolm in the Middle.” But this turn of phrase goes back to at least 1883. This...
sidewalk alumni n.pl.— «He was talking in somewhat awed tones of the game he had seen the day before at the Polo Grounds—the one between the New York Giants and the Chicago Bears.…As one of the sidewalk alumni who was sitting just...
rodbuster
n.— «Rodbuster climbs reinforcing bars at YST pit.» —“Steel Giants Growing” Hammond Times (Indiana) Sept. 25, 1966. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
goat-rope n.— «Any team good enough to get this far comes in fully aware that for several morning hours every day you will have to endure a media goat rope.» —“Giants To Beat Broncos: Simms Is Pressure-Proof” by Randy...
moneyball n.— «While you were still rooting for your team for no reason more profound than it was your team, they changed the rules on you. The Dodgers and Giants split for the Coast, sharpies like George Steinbrenner bought into the...