Brian from Mandan, North Dakota, is puzzling over one of her mother’s sayings. If someone left quickly or abruptly, she’d say that they took off like a ruptured duck. There’s a famous World War II-era military discharge emblem featuring an eagle...
One means of hazing newbies in the Army: send them to get a hundred feet of chow line. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “A Hundred Feet of Chow Line” We had a message from Ernest Pemberton who wanted to tell us about hazing newbies...
Rose in Lebanon, Virginia recalls a phrase passed down from her great-grandmother: The night before the first day of school, parents would come into the children’s bedroom and say in a singsong voice: School butter, school butter. This expression...
Listeners continue to chime in on the topic of funny street names. One of them points out that in Philadelphia, there’s a Rhoads Street and a Street Road. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “At the Intersection of Lost and Confused”...
Our conversation about bang out sick and bang in sick, both meaning to “call one’s employer to say they’re not coming in to work,” prompted a response from historian Judith Flanders, who notes that in the UK, there’s a tradition of banging out...
A listener in Fort Rucker, Alabama, remembers a prank played on new Army recruits: when a sergeant barked the order “Zonk!,” all the seasoned soldiers would fall out of formation and run away, leaving the newbies to wonder what was going on. This is...