Upsitting once meant the first occasion when a new mother sat up to receive visitors after childbirth and confinement, sometimes with food and a feast. William Charles Baldwin’s 1863 African Hunting, From Natal to Zambesi records another use among...
See the cute little boy making the kissy face on the page for our latest episode? That’s Grant’s son, whom you’ve heard him mention on the show. Guthrie’s now about twice as old as he was then and he’ll be heading to...
A listener from Richmond, Virginia, remembers an old game called buckeye that consists of metaphorically pulling someone’s leg, then calling Buckeye! and tugging one’s own lower eyelid. Martha suggests that it may be related to a 19th...
What games first made you realize that words and letters make great playthings? Martha describes puzzling, as a child, over the odd combination of letters, F-U-N-E-X, until she finally figured out the joke. Grant talks about discovering anagrams as...
A shivaree, also spelled charivari, is a raucous, good-natured hazing for newlyweds. A discussion here about that word prompted lots of listeners to write in with their own stories about shivarees. Martha shares some of them. This is part of a...
flabby-pack n.— «It’s hard not to laugh when Will Ferrell, who can be very funny when given something actually funny to do, takes off his shirt to brandish his flabby-pack, a ritual unveiling now apparently written into all his...
