A Michigan biologist wonders how the Carp River in his home state got its name, considering that the river was so named long before that particular fish was introduced. I turns out, just as in the rest of the Western Hemisphere, Europeans who...
You walk into a used bookstore, or pull down an old volume at the library, and there it is: The smell of old books. If you detect notes of vanilla in that intoxicating scent, there’s a reason. Also, why some people think the word awesome is...
If you say they went “all the way around Robin’s barn,” it means they took a long, circuitous route. A San Antonio, Texas, listener wants to know: Who is Robin and why did he build his barn in such an inconvenient place? It’s...
Ruth, a minister in Pennsylvania, grew up hearing by way of Robin Hood’s barn and around Robin Hood’s barn for taking a long, scenic, or indirect route. The image likely draws on the ficitonal Robin Hood’s life in Sherwood Forest, with his “barn”...