The now-extinct Tocharian languages were spoken in western China in the latter half of the first millennium CE. We have only fragments of written texts in these languages, but here’s part of a Tocharian love poem that conveys emotions that...
If you vouch for something, you guarantee that what you’re saying is true. In the early 14th century, vouch was a transitive verb that meant “to summon into court to prove a title.” Vouch was adapted into English from an Old French...
Betsy in Murray, Kentucky, reports that a friend was baffled when Betsy told her Quit your mulligrubbing. She was advising her friend to stop complaining. Since the 16th century, mulligrub meant “a state of depression,” or “a bad...
play pump n.— «Two men in South Africa recognized that the average woman in rural Africa has to walk three miles to get clean water. And they created something called “play pumps,” which is a hydraulic system, in which they...
go-see n.— «Once a girl is signed with a big agency (in New York, where the biggest are located, this would include IMG, Elite, Next, Women and DNA), she is sent on what is called “go-sees”—castings for photographers, editorials and...
voodoo rig n.— «The large dinosaurs glide along, attached to low-slung go-carts run by jockey-size drivers. A second operator in a control booth uses a “voodoo rig”—a device that fits along the operator’s arm—to move a dinosaur’s body...