Megan from Savannah, Georgia, is curious about a phrase her father used: down cellar behind the axe, a phrase whose meaning she never quite understood. Down cellar, meaning “down in the cellar,” is common in New England and the Canadian Maritimes...
A profile in The New Yorker of writer Patricia Lockwood, author of Will There Ever Be Another You (Bookshop|Amazon) opens by saying she has “the impish verve and provocative guilelessness of a peeing cupid,” a description the quirky author herself...
Ever seen a bug so big it could stand flat-footed and kiss a turkey? Kathy from Greensboro, North Carolina, called to share some classic idioms her Georgia grandmother would use to describe bugs, like those gallon-nipper mosquitos and Chatham County...
If someone directs you to drive three sees, they’re advising you “drive as far as you can see, then do it two more times.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Drive Sees” We got an email from Jean Ritzema in Indianapolis, who wrote to...
cold-iron watch v.— «American Export Lines put “a cold-iron watch” on the $53,000,000 Savannah in Galveston, Texas, last week.…It means putting a cadre crew aboard to keep essential maintenance on a dead ship. Electricity, water, steam and other...
alibaba n.— «Others who interrogate a suspect are sometimes at a loss for questions, asking simply, “Are you alibaba?” the commonly used term for the enemy.» —“War from the ground up: A day with the infantry” by Gray Beverley in Baghdad...