Diana from Tucson, Arizona, reports that when she was young, her Irish grandmother would chase her and her misbehaving siblings around the house yelling, “You omadhauns!” Also spelled amadán, this word of Celtic origin means “fool” or “idiot” or...
Clodhoppers fits Amber’s 1990s platform shoes all too well: the word first meant a rustic or rube, the sort of person imagined as literally hopping over clods of earth while working the land. That insulting sense shows up in old newspapers as far...
Joan from McKinney, Texas, wonders about the origin of the disparaging term knucklehead. It’s a mild insult, and as with blockhead and bonehead, it suggests that someone’s head is so full of blocks, bones, or knuckles that there’s no room for brains...
Elainey from Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin, says her friend called her a clothes horse. Her friend meant it as a compliment, but Elainey has always understood the expression to be a dig that implies someone is too preoccupied with their appearance? This...
Mark from Lewiston, Texas, remembers old cartoons where a someone would roll down the window of a car and yell at a pokey motorist, Sunday driver! But why Sunday as opposed to any other day of the week? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript...
Karina in Jackson, Wyoming, wonders why a useful little hardware fastener became an insult. The political wingnut is a shortening of right-wing nut, with nut meaning someone thought to be out of their head or lacking common sense, the same idea as...