A San Diego listener of Mexican descent says a scene in a Quentin Tarantino film has her wondering about the term Mexican standoff. Is it just a duel? A three-way duel, complete with guns? The end of a 1-1 doubleheader in baseball? Over time, it’s...
When adults are talking sex, money, or other adult topics in the presence of children, one might say little pitchers have big ears, meaning that they don’t want the little ones to hear. The expression has to do with beverage pitchers with handles...
When you hear that little pitchers have big ears, do you think of a lemonade pitcher or a baseball pitcher? In The Wisdom of Many: Essays On The Proverb, Wolfgang Mieder points out that a lot of people think it refers to a Little League pitcher with...
Why do we call our biceps guns? The slang lexicographer Jonathon Green suggests that the metaphor first pops up in baseball around the 1920s, when players referred to their throwing arms as guns. Believe it or not, the early baseball pitchers...
projectable adj.— «There are exceptions, of course. But most of the pitchers who get drafted can either throw in the low 90s or are, in the parlance, “projectable.” Which essentially means that a scout can look at the kid and dream a little...
transloading n.— «“If you’re going to ship something less than 400 or 500 miles, it probably makes more sense to ship it on a truck,” Pitcher said, which is done by transloading. Transloading is the term for shipping products by rail, then by...
