Why does the term vegetarian cause so much confusion? Some people assume it means avoiding red meat but still eating chicken. And is there a term for a vegetarian who also eats fish and poultry? Plus, screwball comedies from the 1930s mix slapstick...
Ilima in Vancouver, Canada, reports not everyone understands when she tells them she’s vegetarian. Some people assume, for example, that she doesn’t eat red meat but may enjoy chicken. Part of the issue may involve what linguists call prototype...
Holly from Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, remembers her grandmother loading family dinners with pepper and saying they wouldn’t get the pip. The pepper appears to be a folk-remedy flourish, not part of the word’s origin. The pip, also the pips, has...
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 with a sharp object...
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 the...
Chickens give more than eggs, meat, and feathers—they give language!