Mike in Ukiah, California, grew up in the UK, where he often heard the expression to know your onions, meaning “to be knowledgeable about something.” He suspects the phrase is rhyming slang, but It’s most likely one of many...
Imagine a time when heroin was marketed for the whole family. It really happened! Also, how Twitter, M&M’s, and Hallmark cards got their names. Plus, restaurant slang, bad juju, having a wild hair, cutting to the quick, and use vs. utilize.
eatertain v.— «Kessler spends a lot of time meeting with (often anonymous) consultants who describe how they are trying to fashion products that offer what’s become known in the food industry as “eatertainment.” Fat, sugar, and salt turn...
soot booger n.— «In informal industry parlance, a soot booger is a crusty buildup of stuff that is in coal, but didn’t burn up in the boiler and is too heavy to float out of the smokestack—the soot. Big globs of it—the boogers—accumulate...
It’s the wacky title of a new book by language enthusiast Elizabeth Little which has Martha and Grant talking about whether Coca-Cola and Chevy ran into cultural translation problems when selling products abroad. Did the Chevy Nova really sell...
How do you pronounce eco, as in eco-friendly? Is it EE-koe or EK-koe? A seller of environmentally friendly products learns whether she can tell her teenage son to go spread his pronunciation in the garden. This is part of a complete episode.