Quiz Guy John Chaneski has a fresh-picked puzzle about familiar fruits. For example, if you cherish someone, what fruit-inspired phrase about one’s eye comes to mind? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Fresh Fruit...
A defective car is a lemon because the fruit’s tartness long suggested sourness and disappointment. Austin from Owensboro, Kentucky, heard a friend use the word for a troublesome minivan. The negative sense of lemon appears by the 1860s for a...
Chiasumus, also known as antimetabole, is a somewhat symmetrical expression like John F. Kennedy’s famous “Ask not what your country can do for you”“ask what you can do for your country,” or “Never let a fool kiss you or a...
Dan in San Diego and friends were stumped after one friend jokingly called himself a woman’s mistress. There isn’t a crisp modern equivalent for an unmarried man involved with a married woman, partly because master and mistress once matched each...
sugaring n.— «A business specializing in all-natural hair removal recently opened downtown at 185-A St. Philip St. The shop, called Sweet 185, removes hair through a practice called “sugaring,” which involves a mixture of...
mocktini n.— «Serve the best with this smooth mocktini. It’s always in good taste.…Half-fill martini glass with tonic water, then top off with lemon-lime seltzer. Add lemon twist.» —by Frank Thomas, Karen Lancaster...