When there’s no evening meal planned at home, what do you call that scramble to cobble together your own dinner? Some people apply acronyms like YOYO — “you’re on your own” — or CORN, for “Clean Out your Refrigerator...
John, a Navy veteran in San Diego, California, shares some pranks played on new recruits. One involves sending a newbie to the boatswain’s locker for ten yards of gig line. In military jargon, a gig line is the imaginary line from the middle...
South African English is a rich mix of Afrikaans, English, and indigenous languages such as Zulu and Xhosa. Martha and Grant discuss some favorite terms from that part of the world, including lekker, diski, and ubuntu. Also, where’d we get the...
The 2010 winner of the “Best Picture” Oscar has a Seattle woman wondering about the term hurt locker. Ben Zimmer wrote about it recently in his column at the Visual Thesaurus and we talk about it, too. Here’s the searing poem by...
glue guy n.— «We had a lot of guys in that locker room who were what I like to call “glue guys” and not only was Jeremy a very good player but he was also a “glue guy” and very important to us.…He was one of...
bro-hawk n.— «Andrews is fine now, same as always, all full of personality, showing off a new haircut in the locker room at the Eagles’ minicamp, a mohawk kind of thing that he insists you refer to as a “bro-hawk.”» —“A...