How colors got their names, and a strange way to write. The terms blue and orange arrived in English via French, so why didn’t we also adapt the French for black and white? • Not every example of writing goes in one direction across the page...
Julie in Nantucket, Massachussetts, was tickled when her father used the expression weak as hen turd tea. More commonly called chicken poop tea, or chicken poo tea, or in Australia chook poo tea, hen turd tea is a mixture of poultry manure steeped...
Why do we speak of trying to egg on a person, meaning to urge them to do something? Martha explains that the egg in this case has nothing to do with chickens. This kind of “egg” is derives from an old root that means to “urge on...
enhanced chicken n.— «People shouldn’t be paying chicken prices for saltwater. But some unscrupulous poultry producers add as much as 15 percent saltwater—and then have the gall to label such pumped-up poultry products “natural.” Some in...
Chickens give more than eggs, meat, and feathers—they give language!
surface bargaining n.— «Despite the union vote by the plant’s largely Guatemalan immigrant workers, Case Farms has resorted to what is called “surface bargaining,” in which they pretend to bargain, but actually just waste time with low...