In an article in The Atlantic magazine, humorist Mark Twain quoted a sing-songy bit of doggerel about conductors punching railroad fares that illustrates how colored paper has long been used to encode information. This is part of a complete episode...
John, a Navy veteran in San Diego, California, shares some pranks played on new recruits. One involves sending a newbie to the boatswain’s locker for ten yards of gig line. In military jargon, a gig line is the imaginary line from the middle...
Elaine from Boulder, Colorado, asks why to clock someone means to hit them. The slang appears to come from clock as a noun for the face, attested by the late 1800s, with the verb for punching someone in the face showing up by the 1920s. A related...
Hey, friends! Since we last emailed you, we’ve aired two new episodes of the show: Lie Like a Rug — Cut a chogi meaning to “take a shortcut,” plus sufficiently suffonsified, make ends meet, belly robber, slang from Albuquerque, gender...
Books for sale, books for free, and wisdom passed down through the ages. Libraries aren’t just repositories for books — they’re often a great place to find gently used volumes for sale. Or you can always visit a “little free...
Jim, an engineer from Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, relies on punch list for the final written rundown of unfinished and corrective items before a public works project wraps up. The term shows up in construction and engineering contexts at least as...
