To dime someone out, just like to drop a dime (on someone), is to nark or tattle, common in the days when it cost ten cents to use a pay phone and snitch. Of course, that’s when pay phones were used at all. This is part of a complete episode...
The phrase “no bucks, no Buck Rogers,” made popular by the 1983 film The Right Stuff, has seen a renaissance in usage among pilots. That is, if you don’t pay them what they believe they’re worth, they’re not going to fly. This is part of a complete...
Twitter’s 140-character format has made way for a whole new brand of comedy writing. See Judah Friedlander: “More than one company should be allowed to sell Monopoly,” or Stephen Colbert: “It doesn’t always pay to get up early. If you’re a worm, you...
Does the expression petered out have to do with the Apostle Peter denying he knew Jesus? No, “petered out” may derive from the French peter, meaning to “pass gas.” Another theory is that the expression originated in mining and the use of saltpeter...
Grant shares some familiar proverbs that supposedly arose from African-American English. The book he mentions is Dictionary of American Proverbs by Wolfgang Mieder. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Dictionary of American Proverbs”...
pay-for n.— «One issue was how to pay for reform—the “pay-fors” as they are called. “There are problems with the pay-fors,” Chambliss said, adding that the President had specifically asked him if he could support the surtaxes on the wealthy in the...