The Italian idiom far venire il latte alle ginocchia literally means “to make milk come to the knees.” Figuratively, it means “to be really boring.” It’s been suggested that the phrase refers to the tedious process of sitting and milking a cow, as...
A Turkish proverb translates as “If your mouth is burned by milk, you blow before you eat yogurt,” meaning that if you’ve had a bad experience with one thing, you’ll be cautious when encountering something similar. This is part of a complete episode...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski’s “coffee cup” quiz requires the addition of the letters M (as in milk) or S (as in sugar) to a word to form another word that fits a clue. For example, if the original word is cap, but what he’s looking for is a place to...
If someone spilled a box of paper clips, for example, would you say that they wasted the paper clips, even though the clips could be picked up and re-used? Although most people wouldn’t, this sense of waste meaning “to spill” is used among many...
If you’re in the Ozarks, you might hear the expression that means the same as water under the bridge or spilled milk: “that melon’s busted.” The idea in all three cases is that something irrevocable has happened, and there’s no going back. This is...
Careful what you criticize! Not long ago, some words that sound perfectly normal today were considered gauche and grating on the ear. If the complainers had had their way, we couldn’t say a word like pessimism or use contact as a verb! Also, we’ll...
