Jacuzzi and silhouette are eponyms — that is, they derive from the names of people. An Italian immigrant to California invented the bubbly hot tub called a jacuzzi. And the word silhouette commemorates a penny-pinching treasury secretary who lasted...
Tory in Paulson, Wyoming, is surprised to find that many people aren’t familiar with the term bowery used to mean “an open-air pavilion.” Bowery comes from a Dutch word for “farm,” bouwerij. Today this specialized use...
Michelle calls from the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania to ask about it’s been a minute meaning “It’s been a while.” Why would we use a phrase that usually means “sixty seconds” for a period of time that might...
Cody, who lives in the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee, wonders: If someone is hungry, you feed them, but is there a single word for what you do for someone who’s thirsty? In other words, eat is to feed as drink is to what? A single word...
Why call it a doggy bag when it’s really for your husband? Grant and Martha talk about the language of leftovers and why we eat beef and not cow. And how old is the typical public-library patron? Plus, in Afghanistan, proverbs are part of...
In Afghanistan, proverbs and poetry are part of everyday conversation. When Martha spoke with Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner and And the Mountains Echoed, at the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego, he told her about graffiti in...