Books were rare treasures in the Middle Ages, painstakingly copied out by hand. So how to protect them from theft? Scribes sometimes added a curse to the first page of those books that was supposed to keep thieves away — and some were as vicious as...
Andrew from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, recalls a phrase his grandmother used: You’ve got to eat a peck of dirt before you die. A peck is a unit of dry measure equal to a quarter of a bushel. Peck is also a term of approximate measure, as in to...
Anna in the San Francisco Bay area asks about her family’s pronunciation of measure as /ˈmeɪʒər/, rhyming with hay sure, rather than /ˈmɛʒər/, rhyming with treasure. It’s uncommon, but not unique. Anecdotal reports put it in parts of the Great...
Mary, who grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana, says her Illinois-born husband calls a tape measure a billy, a usage he learned from his father, who grew up in Canton, Illinois. English has other slangy uses of billy for long metal objects, including a...
A pint-sized mad scientist, a green-haired girl with a contagious sense of wonder, and a 10-year-old detective. They’re all characters in the books on Grant’s latest list of recommended books for children. Also, what’s the word for...
Today’s most popular dog names are Max and Bella. In the Middle Ages, though, dogs would answer to names like Amiable. Or Nosewise. Or even … Clench. ? Is the term redneck derogatory? Some folks proudly claim that name. They say...