Cindy in Spokane, Washington, says her father would bid his loved ones good-bye by saying tap ’er light. The phrase comes from miners’ slang of the early 1900s and is a gentle admonition to take care to avoid cave-ins or prematurely detonating...
When it comes to trail mix, the actual peanuts may just as well be foam packing peanuts—all we really want is the chocolate! But if you’re one of those people who dig for the M&Ms and leave the rest, you might be accused of high-grading. This...
High-grading, or stealing choice bits of something, is mentioned in a book by David G. Rasmussen called The Man Who Moiled For Gold. Moil itself is an interesting term, meaning “to become wet and muddy from work.” It comes from the Latin word...