How many different ways are there to say you have a baby on the way? You can say you’re pregnant, great with child, clucky, awkward, eating for two, lumpy, or swallowed a pumpkin seed? • The story behind the word...
A new online archive of Civil War letters offers a vivid portrait of the everyday lives of enlisted men. These soldiers lacked formal education so they wrote and spelled by ear. The letters show us how ordinary people spoke then. • Is there a single...
spray and pray
v. phr.— «Spray and pray from tee to green, and then pray, brother, pray.» —“Sport Podge” by Rex Hess Mansfield News-Journal (Ohio) June 2, 1942. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
garbage head n.— «Soon, you become a garbage head; you take anything—downers, speed, LSD, mescaline—like, you know.» —“Be ‘Cool’ and Have Pals” by Jim Bishop News Journal (Mansfield,Ohio) Oct. 25, 1972...
rat-racing n.— «The Mansfield Thunderbirds model plane club expects to send about 20 members to compete in stunt and rat-racing events to be sponsored in Cleveland May 7 by the Cleveland Stunt Men.» —“Model Club to...
fourwalling v.— «How, in these inflationary times, do you persuade the public to pay $23 million to watch your old home movies, mixed in wish some stock wildlife footage? Answer: You call the confection the “Great American...