What kind of book do people ask for most often in prison? Romance novels? No. The Bible? No. The most requested books by far are … dictionaries! A number of volunteer organizations gather and distribute used dictionaries to help inmates with...
If something is saucered and blowed, it’s completed. The expression derives from an old tradition of pouring a bit of boiling coffee or tea into a deep saucer, and blowing on the liquid to make it cool enough to drink. This is part of a...
Addie in Neenah, Wisconsin, seeks the origin of a word her grandfather used for gunk that gets stuck, such as a bit of food between one’s teeth. The dialectal term is likely ackempucky, which, according to the Dictionary of American Regional...
Listeners are sharing their favorite terms for coffee that’s weak, including warm wet, branch water, pond water, scared water, and in the immortal words of Ani DiFranco, just water dressed in brown. One listener has a friend in North Dakota...
Judy in Miami, Florida, wonders how the expression squeaky clean came to mean spotless, whether literally or metaphorically. At least as early as the 1930s, the squeaky clean referred to hair that was so free of oil and dirt it makes a squeaking...
tanker yanker n. a driver of a tanker truck, which is a tractor trailer or semi carrying liquids. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)