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Episode 1503

Piping Hot

The game of baseball has alway inspired colorful commentary. Sometimes that means using familiar words in unfamiliar ways. The word stuff, for example, can refer to a pitcher’s repertoire, to the spin on a ball, or what happens to the ball...

Gallywampus

The gallywampus is a large, wobbly insect that looks like an overgrown mosquito. These long-legged creatures and others like them go by lots of funny-sounding names, including gallinipper, gabber napper, and granny-nipper. This is part of a complete...

Mosquito Limerick

The robin may be the official State Bird of Wisconsin, but a listener from the Badger State shares a limerick about the unofficial state bird: the mosquito. This is part of a complete episode.

The Lawyer and The Mosquito

What’s the difference between a mosquito and a lawyer? One’s a bloodsucking parasite, and the other’s an insect. This bait-and-switch joke, like many good paraprosdokians, get their humor by going contrary to our expectations. This...

Names for Big Mosquitos

In an earlier episode, we talked about those huge insects known as gallon-nippers.We heard from Dell Suggs in Tallahassee, Florida, who says he knows them simply as gallinippers. This term for a really large mosquito goes back to the early 1700s...

Wrestling Jackets

Here’s a variant of a phrase that’s familiar to many African-Americans, but virtually unknown to most others: “I’m so broke I couldn’t buy a louse a wrestling jacket.” What’s its meaning and origin...

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