English spelling is a hot mess, even for native speakers. But as a new book shows, would-be spelling reformers, including Benjamin Franklin and Theodore Roosevelt, eventually just gave up. Also, what do you call your fellow parent in front of the...
English spelling is messy to say the least, and a delightful new book by Gabe Henry recounts the long history of attempts to simplify English spelling. It’s called Enough is Enuf: Our Failed Attempts to Make English Easier to Spell...
Waiting for the other shoe to drop means “anticipating something that has yet to happen.” An old story may explain the origin of this phrase: A man staying in a boarding house is getting ready for bed. He removes one shoe and lets it fall to the...
How did the term Bohemian come to be associated with literary and artistic nonconformists who live outside mainstream society? In the early 19th century, the French term La bohème was applied to the Romani people, also known as the Roma, a...
Frederick from Valdosta, Georgia, wonders about the term galley-west. To knock something galley-west means to “knock it into confusion” “send everything in all directions.” In Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Aunt Sally angrily throws a...
Old Edward’s sayings or Old Edderd’s sayings are homespun bits of wisdom that were dispensed on the radio show Lum and Abner. The show, which ran from 1931 to 1955, featured the fictional characters of Lum Edwards and Abner Peabody, who worked at...