She sells seashells by the seashore. Who is the she in this tongue twister? Some claim it’s the young Mary Anning, who went on to become a famous 19th-century British paleontologist. Dubious perhaps, but the story of her rise from seaside...
Amber from Charlotte, North Carolina, wonders why big, heavy shoes are called clodhoppers. Originally, clodhopper was an insulting term aimed at rustics or rubes, a reference to farmers who must literally step over clods of dirt to do with work. It...
Bob from Mount Airy, North Carolina, says that while growing up in Michigan, he and others said Brr! in cold weather. But where he lives now, he often hears people exclaim Oosh! As noted in Gratitude for Shoes: Growing up Poor in the Smokies...
A listener shares a story about the time his young granddaughter proudly showed off having tied her shoes. He points out that her shoes are on the wrong feet, but the granddaughter takes it literally, with amusing results. This is part of a complete...
Marge from Greenfield, Wisconsin, wonders why we refer to someone ostentatiously well-behaved as a goody-two-shoes. The 1765 book, The History of Little Goody Two Shoes tells the story of a poor young girl by the same name whose virtue is at long...
Understandings aren’t just for epistemologists and marriage counselors. In the 18th Century, the slang term understandings was a jocular name for “boots” or “shoes.” Later, the word also came to be a joking term for...