Keith in Valparaiso, Indiana, grew up hearing his mother call the refrigerator compartment the icebox, a term that isn’t just a family quirk. Before electric refrigerators became common, especially before the 1930s, an icebox was a wooden cabinet...
Herb in Greenfield, Massachusetts, learned French as a child and wondered why à la mode, meaning “in the fashion,” came to mean ice cream on pie. The phrase comes through French from the Latin modus, “manner, fashion, or style,” and English cooks...