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Not Today, Josephine

A North Carolina listener says that when he was a boy and asked for something at a store that his father didn’t want to buy, his dad would reply Not today, Josephine. The origins of this phrase are unclear, although there is a story that it...

Sandpapering Soup

Adding to our long list of silly responses from harried parents to children who ask what they’re doing, Julie from Hammondsport, New York, says her father’s standard reply was: I’m sandpapering a bowl of soup. This is part of a...

email bankruptcy

email bankruptcy  n.— «If you’ve been waiting for internet legal visionary Lawrence Lessig to reply to your e-mail, forget about it. In a script-driven note sent out last week, Lessig wrote: “Dear person who sent me a yet-unanswered...