Karen in Memphis, Tennessee, says that when she looks disheveled or otherwise unfashionable, her Canadian mother says that she looks like a rig and a half. In Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, and Labrador, Canada, the word rig means “an eccentric, odd, or...
It’s all about terms of endearment: If your loved one is far away for a long time, you’re probably tired of just saying “I miss you” over and over. For variety’s sake, there are some creative alternatives to that phrase. Also, what do you call the...
The “burning platform” is a trendy phrase in business at the moment, used for a crisis that demands immediate action. It refers to a guy on an oil rig that caught fire, and he had the choice of staying on the rig and facing certain death, or jump...
The idiom by and large, an idiom commonly known to mean “in general,” actually combines two sailing terms. To sail by means you’re sailing into the wind. To sail large, means that you have the wind more or less at your back. Therefore, by and large...
Something that’s repaired in a makeshift, haphazard fashion, is said to be jury-rigged. Martha discusses the expression’s likely nautical origin and Grant tells how a different term, jerry-built, led to the variation jerry-rigged. This is part of a...
The word borborygmic means “pertaining to rumblings in one’s tummy or intestines.” Martha explains that it comes from the Greek word borborygmus (“bor-buh-RIG-muss”), a fine example of onomatopoeia if ever there was one. This is part of a complete...
