A man in Orlando, Florida, asks if thereβs a word for slowly circling a parking lot in search of a space for your car. Slang terms for this include sharking and sharking for parking, and sometimes such drivers are jokingly called vultures. This is...
If you want to be a better writer, try skipping todayβs bestsellers, and read one from the 1930βs instead. Or read something besides fiction in order to find your own metaphors and perspective. Plus, just because a cityβs name looks familiar doesnβt...
The phrase ignorance gone to seed invokes an agricultural metaphor. Picture a field that is so far gone itβs no longer flowering and is now beyond the point of further cultivation. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of βIgnorance Gone to...
The 1909 slang collection Passing English of the Victorian Era defines the phrase to introduce shoemaker to tailor this way: βEvasive metaphor for fundamental kicking.β In other words, to introduce shoemaker to tailor means to give someone a swift...
A restaurant review in the Myanmar Times describes a steak that βcould not have been more middle-of-the-road if it was glued to a catβs eye.β This analogy makes sense only if you know that βcatβs eyeβ is a term for the reflective studs in the middle...
The behavior of electricity has long been likened to that of liquid: it flows in a current, and can be turned on and off in a closed system. So itβs not surprising that we talk of getting juice for a phoneβs a battery by plugging it into a charging...

