What does hoot mean? You might describe someone as a real hoot. But is the hoot in the phrase “not give a hoot” a different kind of hoot? Grant explains that in the positive case, hoot is a shortening of hootenanny, a informal party with...
A San Francisco man confesses he routinely pronounces the word both as “bolth.” Grant gives him the results of an informal online survey that shows the caller he’s not alone—some 10 percent of respondents said they do the same...
strap hanging n.— «Usually the truck drivers wait at the opening of the valley for a U.S. Army patrol to pass and then they follow it, a practice soldiers have dubbed “strap hanging.” Lining the sides of the road are the...
desire line n.— «Note long ago, a friend told me about an intriguing concept called “desire lines.” It seems that when landscape architects lay out walking paths and trails in parks and other public spaces, they invariably...
pooled spray n.— Note: Describes the same event as this citation for spray. «Mr Obama’s team, however, said that there never had been plans for anything but only a pooled spray, in which a handful of journalists pose questions in a more...
soot booger n.— «In informal industry parlance, a soot booger is a crusty buildup of stuff that is in coal, but didn’t burn up in the boiler and is too heavy to float out of the smokestack—the soot. Big globs of it—the boogers—accumulate...