Why is boxing called the sweet science when it’s obviously such a bruising sport? Also, a mother of five is baffled when her Gen Z kids use words she thought she knew. For example, they call sweatshirts sweaters, and declare that’s so aesthetic...
Cat hair may be something you brush off, but cat hair is also a slang term that means “money.” In the same way, cat beer isn’t alcoholic — some people use cat beer as a joking term for “milk.” And imagine walking on a beach with a long stretch of...
Maira lives in Puerto Rico and speaks English as a second language. When friends visiting from Minnesota join her at the beach and are ready to swim out into the surf, they say I’m ready to go out. When they’re ready to go back onto the shore, they...
A deckhand on the Lake Champlain ferry in Burlington, Vermont, wonders if there’s a word for those accumulated chunks of ice in the wheel wells of cars. He calls them crusticles, but as we’ve discussed before, they go by lots of names, including...
When you pick up a book of poems, how many do you read in one sitting? Some people devour several in a row, while others savor them much more slowly. Plus, it’s a problem faced by politicians and public speakers: When you have to stand in front of...
A listener wonders about the origin of the phrase “your father’s mustache,” akin to the phrase “go jump in a lake,” or “your mamma wears combat boots.” Grant explains that it may sound more familiar as “your fadda’s mustache,” circa 1930s, Brooklyn...