A wingnut is a handy, stabilizing piece of hardware. So why is it a pejorative term for those of a certain political persuasion? Also, is there something wrong with the phrase committed suicide? Some say that the word commit is a painful reminder...
I’m feeling punk means feeling a bit ill, out of sorts, or queasy, not necessarily bedridden. Tom in Council Bluffs, Iowa, heard it from his grandmother, born in 1899, and wondered how it connects with the punk used to light fireworks. Both trace...
A New York City caller wonders why we refer to clothing as duds. The term dates back to the 1300s, when the word dudde referred to a cloak or mantle of coarse cloth. Over time, it came to refer to shabby clothing and eventually acquired a more...
The exhortation grab a root and growl is a way of telling someone to buck up and do what must be done. The sense of grabbing and growling here suggests the kind of tenacity you might see in a terrier sinking his teeth into something and refusing to...
A listener in San Antonio, Texas, has fond memories of chocolate gravy over biscuits, the word gravy in this sense having nothing to do with a meat-based sauce. Grant shares his mother’s own recipe, which she calls cocoa gravy. This is part of...
Overview effect refers to the cognitive shift in awareness and sense of awe experienced by astronauts who observe Earth from space. The term also inspired the title of Benjamin Grant’s new book, Overview: A New Perspective of Earth, a...