Cecily from Indianapolis, Indiana, recalls her North Carolina-born grandmother would describe someone doing something stupid as being crazy as a betsy bug. The phrase alludes to the horned beetle, also known as the patent-leather beetle, a large...
Judy from Indianapolis, Indiana, remembers her great-aunt Fanny using the expression take a jaybird, meaning take a sponge bath. She explained it as when you wash under your wings and your tail feathers, and maybe polish off your beak. Great-aunt...
An Indianapolis, Indiana, man says that when his grandmother wanted to urge someone on, she’d say “It’s time to pour the cobs on” or “It’s time for the cobs.” What’s the origin? This is part of a...
A woman in Indianapolis, Indiana, says her father regularly used the phrase out in the giggle weeds, meaning out in the middle of nowhere or off the beaten path. Giggle weed is slang for both marijuana and jimson weed, a naturally growing highly...
A Indianapolis, Indiana, woman remembers that her Kentucky-born grandfather used to say that a lazy person wasn’t very work-brickle. The dialectal term work-brickle is a variant of work-brittle, which, in the late 19th century, described...
Whistling in the dark means trying to keep your courage up when things look frightening or hopeless, like someone whistling a jaunty tune down an unlit hallway. Brent in Indianapolis, Indiana, ran into the phrase while teaching To Kill a Mockingbird...