She sells seashells by the seashore. Who is the she in this tongue twister? Some claim it’s the young Mary Anning, who went on to become a famous 19th-century British paleontologist. Dubious perhaps, but the story of her rise from seaside...
Barbara from Seattle, Washington, was surprised to hear a friend from Montana use the term jockey box to mean “glove compartment.” Heard in much of the Northwestern United States, jockey box is a relic of the days when the drivers of...
A bartender wonders about the origin of the term jockey box. In his world, a jockey box is a metal container for ice. However, in some parts of the western U.S., a jockey box is the glove compartment of a car, and much earlier, the term referred to...
A Wyoming native asks about the origin of her father’s term of approbation, good leather. Grant thinks it might be from baseball, where good leather means “good fielding with a leather ball in a leather glove.” This is part of a...
You have a pair of gloves, and there are two of them; you have a pair of shoes, and there are two; a pair of socks, and there’s one for each foot, right? So why do we have a pair of jeans when it’s only one item? This is part of a...
deglove v. to force off or peel back skin from a part of the body, especially a limb or appendage, as if removing a glove, sleeve, or mask. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)