Someone who spends a lot of time reading books is known in English as a bookworm. The Hungarian and Estonian terms for such a person translates as “book moth,” and in Indonesian as “book flea” or “book louse.” In...
Sunny-side up eggs sometime go by the name looking at you eggs, an apparent reference to how the yolk in the middle of the egg white makes them resemble eyes. A similar idea appears in the German name, which translates as “mirror egg,”...
Tautologies in names are pretty funny, like the Sahara Desert, which basically means “Desert Desert,” or the country of East Timor, which in Malay means “East East.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of...
A Green Bay, Wisconsin, caller is curious about her mother’s playful interjections. If someone said, “Well,” her mother would add, “Well, well. Three holes in the ground.” If someone started a sentence with...
step-thru n.— «The company plans to produce 1.2 lakh vehicles comprising only “step-thrus” (a cross between mopeds and motorcycles) or “bebeks” as they are called in the Indonesian market and capture a 5% share by...
aaargh plop n.— «Scientists may just be learning what is already common knowledge among Indonesian villagers. Peter Roeder, a consultant for the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, says locals have an onomatopoeic name for bird flu...