This week, it’s the language of politics. Martha and Grant discuss two handy terms describing politicians: far center and snollygoster. Also, a presidential word puzzle, false friends, spendthrifts, and a long list of 17th-century insults. So...
Pommy is an often derogatory nickname used by Australians for the English. Does it come from an acronym for either “Prisoner of Mother England” or “Prisoner of Her Majesty”? The more likely story has to do with sunburn and...
in the bag other.— «After a year training at Burnham Military Camp and in Egypt, he found himself in Crete and “in the bag,” as they called it, a prisoner of war on a bitter journey to the “hell camp” in Germany...
Welcome to the A Way with Words newsletter, where "language" is our middle name. "Dangerous" was taken. This weekend we told you what a "trailer queen" and a "soup spitter" are, and we took a punny quiz about...
pass-through contract n.— «Because the federal government does not deal directly with private detention businesses, Nueces County is in the process of negotiating a new federal prisoner housing rate for its own jail as well as a rate for...
shit up n.— «Assaults, when they happened, were generally of a relatively minor nature in comparison: grabbed arms perhaps, a shoulder-barge, the occasional slap, kick—or a favourite with the subversive prisoner, a “shit up,”...