Lanessa in San Antonio, Texas, remembers once when her Tennessee-born grandmother saw her grandfather coming home from work and tromping into her pristine kitchen: “What in the tarnation? You don’t have any gumption! Don’t come walking into my...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski has crafted this puzzle with eeeeeeeease. In fact, all the answers are combinations of words that include only one vowel sound — a long E. For example, suppose the clue is It’s what some people say the moon is made of...
Black-hearted buzzard isn’t a standard expression, but its parts have long histories. Black-hearted has meant having ill will or bad intentions since the 1600s, and buzzard has been an insult since the 1300s, likely a polite substitute for...
Kathleen from Ithaca, New York, remembers her mother saying Go fry ice! meaning “Bug off!” It’s probably a minced oath replacing a phrase that exhorts the hearer to go do something else that starts with F. The earliest known...
Sharing a secret language. Did you ever speak in gibberish with a childhood pal, adding extra syllables to words so the adults couldn’t understand what you were saying? Such wordplay isn’t just for kids—and it’s not just limited to...
Clark in Fort Worth, Texas, asks about the expression “not to mince words” after seeing it in a New York Times Paul Krugman column. To mince is “to make small,” from the same word family as diminish, miniature, and minute. Mincing onions cuts them...