Janine in Charleston, South Carolina, is curious about the derogatory term feather merchant. In the mid-20th century feather merchant was used among members of the military to mean “a weakling,” or “a shirker.” This is part...
Marlena from Dallas, Texas, was surprised to see the word brainstorm defined in an old dictionary as “a violent, transient mental derangement manifested in a maniacal outburst.” That indeed was the sense of this word in the late 19th...