Ruth in Cincinnati, Ohio, is curious about the lyrics to the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic “Maria” from the movie The Sound of Music. Maria, a nun who’s not quite a good fit for the abbey, is described as “a...
The phrase tearing up Jack, which refers to “engaging in rowdy, rambunctious behavior,” has its origins in the traditional English card game known as All Fours. This game is the source of the term jack, referring to the lowest face card...
Our conversation about women who use the nicknames Gertie or Gert as jokingly affectionate terms for each other, prompted a listener in Melbourne, Australia, to speculate that it’s a nod to Gertrude Lawrence, an English performer who rose to...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski’s puzzle this week was inspired by the Gersberms meme, and involves adding R sounds to book titles to create books with entirely different plots. For example what George Orwell novella would be about a horse, a duck, a...
When two people can’t gee-haw together, it means they don’t get along. The terms gee-haw, or gee and haw, come from farming, where a trained animal obeys a command to go left or right–to gee or haw, in other words. Noncompliant...
You dream of writing the great American novel, but to make ends meet, you spend your days writing boring corporate reports. There’s a difference between writing for love and writing for a living — or is there? Does a heyday have anything to do...