Some of the world’s greatest writers had to do their work while holding down a day job. William Faulkner and Anthony Trollope toiled as postal clerks. Zora Neal Hurston trained as an anthropologist. Vladimir Nabokov was a lepidopterist who...
Chester drawers is a common reshaping of chest of drawers, especially when the furniture name has been learned by ear rather than from print. Jessica in Madison, Wisconsin, grew up near St. Louis and thought it might simply be a style name, like...
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...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski has a quiz called “Scronsonants.” The object is to guess two-word phrases containing a pair of words starting with the same three consonants. Here’s one: “I get a particular joy from the pain of others...
How should you pronounce the word jewelry? That prompts a conversation about the transposition of letters and sounds called metathesis— not only in jewelry, but many others including realtor, foliage, larynx, and introduce. This is part of a...
Dean, a Navy veteran from Lake Bay, Washington, remembers being called a cumshaw artist in Vietnam for “permanently borrowing” whatever his unit needed, from refrigerator regulators to gasoline to whiskey for a party. The term cumshaw...