An engineer at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, says he and his colleagues refer to tangled underwater cables as wuzzles. Does anyone else? At least as early as the mid-19th century, the verb wuzzle has meant “to...
Greg in Mena, Arkansas, says that when he was learning to be a professional pilot, one of his instructors would say, You thought like Nelly if someone had thought they were doing something correctly, but failed to. Although the phrase is not that...
When there’s no evening meal planned at home, what do you call that scramble to cobble together your own dinner? Some people apply acronyms like YOYO — “you’re on your own” — or CORN, for “Clean Out your Refrigerator...
Brenna, a nurse in Rapid City, South Dakota, says she was on a hospital elevator full of people and when the doors opened and someone in the back was trying to get off, she piped up with One side or a leg off!, but no one understood that phrase. It...
Joan from Buffalo, New York, wants to know how to spell a particular word that means to spiff up, clean up, straighten, or fix. The word is zhuzh, which has had dozens of different spellings over the years because it’s primarily transmitted...
Knitters speak of being stranded on Sleeve Island. As the host of Sal & Al: The Woolslayers explains: Being on Sleeve Island is the feeling you get when you think you’re almost finished with a sweater because you’ve completed the...