Felines have inspired some picturesque terms. In parts of the Midwestern United States, the term cat beer can mean “milk.” The term cat hair is sometimes used as a synonym for “money,” and cat ice is “thin ice.”...
Grant shoots holes in a story that just won’t die that about “son of a gun” and babies born aboard sailing ships. Before you get started today, please go to to support the show. Podcast listeners like you will make the show possible in...
Dave in Council Bluffs, Iowa, has fond memories of Hough Bakeries in Cleveland, Ohio, which made a treat called lady locks. Sometimes called lady locks, foam rollers, and clothespin cookies, they featured puff pastry rolled around a small cylinder —...
In eastern Pennsylvania, the adjective strubbly describes hair that’s unkempt or messed up. It’s also spelled “strubley,” “stribley,” “stroobley,” “strubly,” “stribly,”...
Dennis in LaCrosse, Wisconsin, recalls that his Spanish-speaking mother used to speak frankly with him or rebuke him using the phrase “No tengo pelo en mi lengua,” meaning “I have no hair on my tongue.” The same idea appears...
Judy in Miami, Florida, wonders how the expression squeaky clean came to mean spotless, whether literally or metaphorically. At least as early as the 1930s, the squeaky clean referred to hair that was so free of oil and dirt it makes a squeaking...