There’s a Chinese term for a generalist that literally translates as “equipped with knives all over, yet none is sharp.” In Estonia, a similar idea is expressed with a phrase that translates as “nine trades, the tenth one...
Thomas in Bahama, North Carolina, says his father used to say “You can’t hang around the barbershop and not get your haircut,” which seems to be a warning about being influenced by the company you keep. Similar ideas are expressed...
You may have heard the advice that to build your vocabulary you should read, read, and then read some more – and make sure to include a wide variety of publications. But what if you just don’t have that kind of time? Martha and Grant...
Our conversation about Spanish idioms involving food prompted a tweet from Tijuana, Mexico: del plato a la boca, se cae la sopa, or between the dish and the mouth, the soup spills, or don’t count your chickens before they hatch. A similar idea is...
The expression to have brass on one’s face is used in the South Atlantic region of the United States to describe someone who is bold or overconfident. There’s a similar idea in the word brazen, which derives from an Old English word for brass. This...
Private Voices, also known as the Corpus of American Civil War Letters, is an online archive of thousands of letters written by soldiers during the U.S. Civil War. Because the soldiers lacked formal education and wrote “by ear,” the...