All wool and a yard wide means “reliable and trustworthy.” The phrase was part of advertisements in the late 19th century, touting material produced by textile mills that wasn’t shoddy, which meant it was not made from the shredded...
Jury-rigged is the older form for a makeshift repair, likely from nautical jury mast, an emergency mast rigged when the real one was lost or broken. Sean in Michigan has also heard jerry-rigged and, from an IT co-worker, Gary-rigged. The jerry...
If you want to claim something—say, the front seat of a car or the last piece of cake—what do you say? Dibs? Boney? How about “I hosey that!”? The hosts talk about this New England expression, its possible origins, and its equivalent in...