Artie in New Bern, North Carolina, wonders why a poker hand consisting of a pair of aces and a pair of eights is called a dead man’s hand. Legend has it that when Wild Bill Hickock was killed during a poker game in 1876 in the Dakota...
Laura from Ithaca, New York, is puzzling over the lyrics to Cornell University’s fight song, “Give My Regards to Davy,” sung to the tune of George M. Cohan’s “Give My Regards to Broadway.” The lyrics include the word...
Ron, who lives in North Pole, Alaska, is curious about an admonition from his mother: Don’t get into any jackpots. This expression, which dates back to the 1800s, refers to getting trapped into adding bets to a round of high-stakes poker...
A historian in Indianapolis, Indiana, says a World War II-era letter from her father to her mother refers to running a sandy. It’s a phrase that derives from poker and the act of sandbagging, a kind of bluffing of an opponent. This is part of...
Janice from Jericho, Vermont, remembers hearing jackpot used to mean trouble in the world of horse racing. That “trouble” sense has been part of the word from the beginning. In early poker, a player needed a pair of jacks to open the betting, so the...
Garrett in San Diego remembers his great-grandmother saying You bet your boots! or You bet your britches! to mean without a doubt. The phrases are common in American English and likely come from gambling, where betting your boots or trousers would...