In English, if we want to say that something will never occur, we say it’ll happen when pigs fly or when hell freezes over. In Spanish, you can express this idea by saying it will happen “when cows fly,” or el día que las vacas vuelen. In Italian...
A law enforcement officer says he and his colleagues are curious about how the word pig came to be used as a derogatory term for police. This use has a long history that goes back more than two centuries. This is part of a complete episode...
The German idiom Ich glaub mein Schwein pfeift is used to express tremendous surprise. Literally, it means, “I think my pig is whistling!” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “German Whistling Pig Idiom” You know, Germans have a lot of...
“Ix-nay on the ocolate-chay in the upboard-cay” is how you’d say “nix on the chocolate in the cupboard” in pig Latin. English speakers have a long history of inserting syllables or rearranging syllables in a word to keep outsiders from understanding...
Whistle pig, woodchuck, and groundhog are all terms for a type of large squirrel, or marmot, found in the United States. The name whistle pig, common in Appalachia, is a jocular reference to the sound they make. This is part of a complete episode...
A St. Petersburg, Florida, listener says when she used to ask her mother what was for dinner, her mom’s answer was often “root, little pig, or die,” meaning “You’ll have to fend for yourself.” The more common version of the expression, root, hog, or...