A ducksnort in softball or baseball will never make the highlight reel. It’s often a blooper of a hit that lands between the infield and the far outfield, but still gets the job done. Paul Dickson, author of the authoritative Dickson Baseball...
A hawk in its prime state of fitness is known as a yarak, a word that may derive from a Persian word meaning “strength, ability.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Yarak” Grant, here’s a word I...
The phrases “Who let the hawk out?” and “The hawk is flying tonight” both mean “there’s a chilly wind blowing.” This saying is almost exclusive to the African-American community and is associated with that...
Is that a winklehawk in your pants? A listener shares this word for those L-shaped rips in your trousers, from an old Dutch term for “a carpenter’s L-shaped tool.” And Grant has a new favorite term, motherwit, meaning “the...
Brent from San Diego asks why the expression “keep your eyes peeled” uses peeled, and whether it has anything to do with birds of prey opening their eyes. The phrase is spelled P-E-E-L, and its likely 19th-century sense is simply that the eyelids...
bathtub effect n.— «Of particular urgency to Conrad and Michel is how best to address the scheduled downsizing of the bases’ personnel and mission before the Predator and Global Hawk UAVs are scheduled to arrive in 2009. The “bathtub”...