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Emily in San Diego, California, reports her father’s side of the family has a word for the back of the knee: nicket. German speakers refer to that part of the body as the Kniekehle, from German words meaning “knee” and...
What’s so cool about bees’ knees, anyway? The bee’s knees, a phrase meaning “cool” or “great,” dates back to the flapper era of the 1920s. It relates to an old definition of the word “cute,”...
A Texas grandmother says she’s long been baffled about the origin of a counting rhyme that she learned from her grandmother. During the game, her grandmother bounced her on her knee, saying, “Malagee Buck, Malagee Buck, how many fingers...
stubby n.— «Stubbies are foreshortened prostheses used during and sometimes after initial ambulatory rehabilitation. They are custom fitted and are usually made up of standard sockets, no articulated knee joints or shank, with modified...
cockroach effect n.— «It’s sort of like what they call the “cockroach effect” on the financial markets. Every time there’s “hints” of anything going wrong inside a company, everybody starts selling the company’s stock in a knee-jerk vote...