If someone’s a piece of work, they’re a real pain in the rear. Merriam-Webster defines a piece of work as “a complicated, difficult, or eccentric person.” The expression appears to derive from Hamlet: “What a piece of...
A line from The Moor of Venice, “that I would liefer bide,” features an old word for rather that shares a root with the words love and leave, as in by your leave. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “I Would...
He thinks he’s a wit, and he’s half right. Though some might attribute the quote to Shakespeare, it’s nowhere to be found in the concordances. Grant explains how many of these witticisms have been tumbled about by old newspaper...
What’s Lady Macbeth talking about when she urges Macbeth to “screw your courage to the sticking point”? This image of mustering up bravery most likely has to do with tightening the strings of a crossbow. This is part of a complete...
We have collective nouns for animals, like “a gaggle of geese,” “a pride of lions,” and “an exaltation of larks.” So why not collective nouns for plants? How about a “greasing of palms,” or a...
A few weeks ago, a listener was looking for a term to describe the copy of The Emperor’s New Clothes that he’d read many times as a child. In this picture book, the naughty bits were always cleverly covered up. Thinking he wanted a synonym for “fig...