Every tub on its own bottom suggests that every person or entity in a group should be self-sufficient. This idiom, often abbreviated to ETOB, is common in academic speech to mean that each department or school should be responsible for raising its...
What’s the difference between Pandora’s box and a can of worms? In Greek myth, the contents of the fateful box belonging to Pandora (literally, “all gifts” in ancient Greek) were a mystery. With a can of worms, on the other...
Why do we call our biceps guns? The slang lexicographer Jonathon Green suggests that the metaphor first pops up in baseball around the 1920s, when players referred to their throwing arms as guns. Believe it or not, the early baseball pitchers...
News reports that the makers of Scrabble were changing the rules to allow proper names left some purists fuming. The rumors were false, but they got Grant thinking about idiosyncratic adaptations of the game’s rules. Also this week, the...
An Indianapolis listener says his father used to often spoke of leaving this veil of tears. His son wonders about the origin of that phrase. Grant and Martha explain the expression is actually vale of tears, a synonym for valley. In some...
Where do we get the phrase “belly up”? The expression has made its way to the bar, but the original belly up belonged to a dead fish. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Belly Up” Hello, you have A Way with...
