Mary Lou is a former newspaper reporter in Memphis, Tennessee. One of her editors used to say he was off to the salt mines, meaning he was headed to do some challenging work. That expression is a reference to the grim practice of sending prisoners...
Robert from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, was surprised to find when working in Siberia that children there are taught to use different words to say the sound an animal makes. For example, English speakers say cock-a-doodle-doo, but children in Siberia...
A Dallas, Texas, listener is annoyed when he sees a price listed with the dollar sign after the amount, rather than before, as in 500$ rather than $500. In some parts of the world, however, the currency symbol routinely follows the number. This is...
Jingoism is not archaic yet, just a sharper-than-usual word for aggressive, chest-thumping nationalism. Katie in East Thetford, Vermont, had used jingoistic for a political candidate and wondered if it was merely a family word. Its history runs...
We spoke on a recent show about the joking consolation parents offer to a crying child, “It’ll be better before you’re married.” A podcast listener in Siberia emailed to say that in Russian, a similar saying translates to...
defac n.— Note: “Defac” is far less often spelled “difac,” despite being a blend of “dining facility.” «Camp Phoenix in particular, was an example of where the disease began with food preparation and...
