Savannah of Washington, D.C., and her South African husband, John, have opposite readings of jacked up: to her, if the D.C. Metro is “jacked up” then it’s messed up; to him, it is impressively “raised up” or better than expected. The phrase is...
Well, shut my mouth and call me Shirley! Butter my buns and call me a biscuit! Kurt in Grand Rapids shares several of these humorous imperatives. The roots of this snowclone, a reusable phrase template of the form do X to me and call me Y, probably...
Should we use try and or try to? Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage says it’s grammatically permissible to “try and go to the store,” or to ask someone to “try and speak up.” However, a fan of formality ought to stick with try to. Still...
Some of the world’s greatest writers had to do their work while holding down a day job. William Faulkner and Anthony Trollope toiled as postal clerks. Zora Neal Hurston trained as an anthropologist. Vladimir Nabokov was a lepidopterist who curated a...
In a 1936 episode of Jack Benny’s radio show, a woman says that her father sprained his ankle the night before while truckin’. This has an A Way with Words listener confused; she thought trucking was a term from the 1970s. Grant clears up the...
witness mark n.— «Witness marks on the jack screws that drive the flaps and on other data indicate that Flight 801’s flaps had been placed in the landing setting of 30 deg., according to investigators.» —“Guam Probe Targets Weather, Altitude...