Artie in New Bern, North Carolina, wonders why a poker hand consisting of a pair of aces and a pair of eights is called a dead man’s hand. Legend has it that when Wild Bill Hickock was killed during a poker game in 1876 in the Dakota...
Larry from Cameron, South Carolina, says a friend who grew up on Johns Island, South Carolina, was warned since she was a small child to stay out of the woods, lest she be seized by a scary beast known as the guyascutus. At least as far back as the...
In The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary (Bookshop|Amazon), Simon Winchester refers to piling Pelion upon Ossa, meaning “making a difficult situation even more difficult.” Pelion...
Ross, a Navy listener in Hawaii, asks how to pronounce Aegis, the naval combat system. The most common and oldest pronunciation is EE-jiss, while AY-jiss appears in recent American dictionaries as an acceptable second choice. The word goes back to...
Jason in San Antonio, Texas, is curious why the term salamander is applied to small heater on a construction site. In ancient lore, the mythical beast called a salamander was impervious to fire. Later salamander was applied to various heating...
A New York City man wonders if there’s any truth to the story that New Yorkers say they stand on line, as opposed to in line, because of lines painted on the floor at Ellis Island. Although such lines are useful for managing large queues, the...