Kathy from Huntsville, Alabama, remembers that her father would entice guests to stay awhile longer with the puzzling phrase We’re fixing to open up a keg of nails. Actually, the keg of nails in this case is a jocular euphemism referencing a...
A listener who grew up in Ukraine recalls that her family always referred to chicken drumsticks by a name that translates as Bush’s legs. This jocular term refers to an agreement between U.S. President George H.W. Bush and Soviet leader...
David from Trophy Club, Texas, wonders about the phrase “I wouldn’t kick them out of bed for eating crackers.” This jocular expression has been around since the early 1940s, and indicates that someone is so lovable they could do...
Katrina in Williamsburg, Virginia, asks if it’s pretentious to use the word said to describe something previously referred to. Using said to mean the aforesaid or the aforementioned is far more common in legal documents, but there’s...
The dated term “jingoism” denotes a kind of belligerent nationalism but the word’s roots lie in an old English drinking-house song that was popular during wartime. Speaking of fightin’ words, the expression “out the side of...
New research shows that you may be less influenced by superstitious behavior like walking under ladders or the magic of four-leaf clovers if you’re reading about it in another language. • Sometimes not cursing will catch someone’s ear...