If someone’s impatiently pounding on your front door, you might respond Keep your pants on! The origin of this phrase is unclear, though it may be related to keep your shirt on, and other expressions that refer to partially disrobing before a...
“Home again, home again, jiggity-jig!” A listener wonders about the origin of this phrase her Mother often used. Grant and Martha trace it back to another mother: Mother Goose. The full line goes, “To market, to market, to buy a...
If you’re fair to middling, you’re doing just fine. A native of the Tennessee mountains wonders about the origin of this phrase her good-humored grandfather used. As it turns out, fair to middling was one of the many gradations a farmer...