Quincy works as a delivery driver in San Diego, Calfornia. His wife’s been teasing him that while she’s stuck at home, his job lets him go out having fun, gallivanting, and “running into the strumpets.” What, he wonders, is a...
Lucy, a middle-school student in San Diego, California, is puzzled by a phrase her mother uses when something is not quite up to snuff or falls short of the mark: close, but no tomato. It appears to be a variant of close, but no cigar, a phrase...
Andres from San Diego, California, wonders: Why do we refer to jail as the pokey? The term, along with its variant pogie or pogey, likely goes back to a word for workhouse, a prison where people worked as part of their sentence, much like...
Lisa says her whole canasta group in San Diego, California, wonders if there’s a term breasting to denote one’s playing cards close to the chest so that others can’t see them. New card players often lack proprioception, that is, a...
Following up on our conversation about practical jokes played on newbies in the workplace, a San Diego, California, listener shares his own story about being sent on an errand to find a wall stretcher. This is part of a complete episode.
Shona in San Diego, California, is puzzling over why we don’t pronounce the w in the word two. The answer has to do with its etymological origins and the fact that spelling doesn’t change as quickly as pronunciation. This is part of a...