Gopal from Greenville, North Carolina, wonders why we use the phrase my two cents after expressing an opinion to indicate that we’re open to discussion about it. Since the 16th century, the term twopence has been used to mean a “paltry, trifling...
Mary Bell from Montgomery, Alabama, works in a doctor’s office where a hectic backlog of patients and appointments might elicit colleagues to say “We’re slammin’” or “We’re slammed.” The usage is familiar in restaurants and catering, where getting...
If you’re serious about writing a memoir, what topics should you include, and what can you leave out? And how honest can you really be about the other people in your life? Some of America’s leading memoirists wrote things they lived to regret. And:...
“Helicopter parents” are so named because of their tendency to hover over their children’s lives. A Kentucky listener who made an initial college visit with her son reports two variations that she learned from staffers: “Lawnmower parents,” who mow...
A young woman is puzzled when her boyfriend’s father says he was looking for someone who needs a good boy Friday. It’s most likely a reference to Daniel Defoe’s 1719 novel Robinson Crusoe. The title character spends 30 years on a remote tropical...
If someone’s a pound of pennies, it means they’re a valuable asset and a pain in the butt, all at the same time. Grant and Martha are stumped on the origin of this one, though it is true that a pound of pennies comes out to about $1.46. One suspects...