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.
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.
cross-docking n.— «Cost savings are huge in Wal-Mart’s distribution and logistic functions as it employs a method called cross-docking. Products are received on one side of the warehouse and leave out of the other side, virtually...
third shift n.— «Companies in China, for example, already have the experience, manufacturing capacity, and technical know-how to produce Cisco’s products. And sometimes they run extra shifts or a “third shift” to produce a...