A woman in Council Bluffs, Iowa, says that when her mother was indicating that two things were roughly equal, she’s say they were six and one half dozen of the other. The more common version is six of one and half a dozen of the other or six of one...
“A horse apiece”, meaning “six of one, half a dozen of the other,” comes from an old dice gambling game to describe a draw. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Etymology of “A Horse Apiece”” Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hi, this...
Is there a word you keep having to look up in the dictionary, no matter how many times you’ve looked it up before? Maybe it’s time for a mnemonic device. And: a listener shares a letter from Kurt Vonnegut himself, with some reassuring advice about...
If you were raised in North Dakota like our caller, you might wonder about a phrase you heard growing up: “It’s a horse apiece.” It means something like “six of one, half a dozen of the other.” She is curious about the origin of the horse phrase and...

