Artie in New Bern, North Carolina, wonders why a poker hand consisting of a pair of aces and a pair of eights is called a dead man’s hand. Legend has it that when Wild Bill Hickock was killed during a poker game in 1876 in the Dakota...
A man in Surprise, Arizona, wonders why people jumping into a pool sometimes yell “Geronimo!” The history of this exclamation goes back to an eponymous 1939 movie about the famed Apache warrior Geronimo. The film was popular on U.S. military bases...
In German, ein Korb geben–literally, to “give a basket”—means to “turn down a potential date.” This idiom derives from a medieval legend about a castle-dwelling woman. Instead of letting her hair down for a suitor she didn’t fancy, she let down a...
Noctivagant people are those who wander the night, and vespertilian folks have bat-like qualities. Add these to “shirtless” as poignant ways to describe a vampire. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Noctivagant...