David says that when he was growing up in Akron, Ohio, his family referred to the grassy area between the sidewalk and street as the devil strip. He’s since moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where he doesn’t hear that term. There are lots of terms for...
Quiz Guy Greg Pliska has a game called “Centricity”, emphasis on the “city.” For example, “Mickey ate all the fruit, leaving Minneapolis.” And as George H.W. Bush said to George W. Bush, “You can be president Tucson.” This is part of a complete...
Welcome to another newsletter from A Way with Words. This one's full of soda-fountain goodness! Let's just say right out of the gate that, judging by the emails and phone calls, the top call for this past weekend's show was the one about...
sideways market n.— «The stock market has been sending a series of mixed signals recently—a few days of strong gains followed by a few days of discouraging declines. This is what Wall Street refers to as a “sideways market”—and it’s exactly what...
zipper n.— «When he was running around shirtless this summer, Wyatt realized most other kids don’t have surgical scars—or “zippers,” as he calls them.» —“Fighting cancer, as a patient and a lobbyist” by Nina Petersen-Perlman Star...
tooth floater n.— «Jim Johnson of Sacred Heart has been a horse tooth floater for 15 years. He uses something that looks like a giant nail file called a “float”—the name used years ago for leveling or planing tools. He swears it doesn’t hurt the...
