Finding that special bottle of wine can be tough, and even tougher if you’re not fluent in winespeak. “Strawberries, rhubarb, and hints of leather are present in the nose.” Say what? Plus, many folks wish each other “Merry...
Jeff in Dallas noticed that an early English pre-printed Christmas card read Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. It points to a broader history of merry. In 1800s American English, merry was common for exuberant, joyful pleasure, and it is cognate...
Our Puzzle Guy John Chaneski has a game for all the idiom-lovers out there. For each category, three letters match with different phrases. For example, name three things you can hold, starting with the letters C, G, and T. These are open-ended...
Has anyone collected the stuff folks say to bald people? How about a busy road grows no grass, or God only made so many perfect heads — the rest he covered in hair. Jorge Luis Borges deemed the 1982 Falklands War between the UK and Argentina as...
Why do spelling bees include such bizarre, obsolete words as cymotrichous? Why is New York called the Big Apple? Also, the stinky folk medicine tradition called an asifidity bag, the surprising number of common English phrases that come directly...
“Well, Butter My Buns and call me a biscuit!” Martha and Grant talk about great catch phrases from old-time radio comedies. Also, why do we speak of a meteoric rise? Don’t meteors plummet? What do you keep in a Fibber McGee drawer...