Bud in Council Bluffs, Iowa, says when he was fishing but no one was catching anything, an acquaintance observed, We must be holding our mouths wrong. There are several versions of that expression, including You must be holding your mouth wrong or...
Good night, nurse! is an old-fashioned exclamation for surprise, disbelief, or frustration, and Debbie in Dallas, Texas, uses it as a cussword substitute. An early example dates to 1908, close to British lexicographer Eric Partridge’s estimate of...
Mike from San Diego asks about stingaree, a name once used for part of the city’s red-light district and later revived by a swank downtown nightclub. The word could refer to a stingray, but it also had seedier slang senses: a shortchanging con game...
bum bra n.— «I noticed the denim was pulling across the top of the back of my legs. Dang, I thought, too tight. Then the clerk pointed at the taut fabric and said, “That’s the bum bra.”… It’s a dynamic trio of jean...
