A listener remembers her grandmother’s colorful comment when someone arrived late after getting lost: You went around your elbow to get to your thumb. Lots of similar sayings in English suggest roundabout routes or overcomplicated tasks, including...
Alan, who grew up in eastern North Carolina, remembers his mother saying jubous when she distrusted a claim or felt doubtful about a situation. The word appears in spellings such as jubous, jubus, dubous, and dubus, all reflecting dialect...
