An eight-year-old from San Diego wonders about the origin of the term bullseye. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Bullseye Origin” Hello, you have a wait with words. Hello, my name is Jack. I’m calling from San...
If you want to be a better writer, try skipping today’s bestsellers, and read one from the 1930’s instead. Or read something besides fiction in order to find your own metaphors and perspective. Plus, just because a city’s name...
The expression on and on like Tennyson’s brook describes something lengthy or seemingly interminable, like a long-winded speaker. The phrase is a reference to a lovely poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson about the course of a body of water. This is...
Jan from Madison, Wisconsin, remembers her grandfather saying ignorance gone to seed about anything that struck him as really stupid. On its own, gone to seed means moved beyond the point of cultivation, like an untended yard full of tall stems and...
The 1909 slang collection Passing English of the Victorian Era defines the phrase to introduce shoemaker to tailor this way: “Evasive metaphor for fundamental kicking.” In other words, to introduce a shoemaker to a tailor means to give someone a...
A restaurant review in the Myanmar Times describes a steak that “could not have been more middle-of-the-road if it was glued to a cat’s eye.” This analogy makes sense only if you know that “cat’s eye” is a term...