Stunt performers in movies have their own jargon for talking about their dangerous work. In New York City, the slang term brick means “cold,” and dumb brick means “really cold.” Plus: the East and Central African tradition...
Why call it a doggy bag when it’s really for your husband? Grant and Martha talk about the language of leftovers and why we eat beef and not cow. And how old is the typical public-library patron? Plus, in Afghanistan, proverbs are part of...
In Afghanistan, proverbs and poetry are part of everyday conversation. When Martha spoke with Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner and And the Mountains Echoed, at the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego, he told her about graffiti in...
“Go fly a kite!” A caller from Washington, D.C. wonders whose kite is getting flown and why. Naturally, we have some ideas! Here’s a copy of the cartoon Grant mentions (from the Chicago Tribune May 15, 1927, p. G2). This is part of...
This week’s Slang This! contestant finds out whether the word puddle is a slang term for part of a car’s muffler and if the expression hang paper involves flying kites. This is part of a complete episode.
three-jack n.— «His day started miserably, with a drive into the rough on the 1st, and a bogey. He three-putted the 2nd, his first three-whip of the week, then made it a pair with a three-jack on the 4th.» —“Kite’s crash...