Mark in Long Beach, California, was considering hell for leather as a racing-team name. The phrase means going recklessly at full speed, but its origin is uncertain. A traditional explanation points to a rough horseback ride, with saddle, reins, or...
In the 19th century, the slang term door-knocker referred to a beard-and-mustache combo that ringed the mouth in the shape of a metal ring used to tap on a door. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Door-Knocker Beard”...
The slang term stroppy is an adjective meaning “annoying” or “difficult to deal with.” It might be related to the similarly unpleasant word, obstreperous. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Stroppy Means Annoying or Hard to...
In Albuquerque schoolyards, umbers was the call kids made when a classmate got in trouble, and Rachel from Dallas, Texas, remembers joining in whenever someone was sent to the principal’s office or punished at recess. It’s similar to...
A San Antonio, Texas, listener is puzzled about a story in The Guardian about Mavis Staples speculating about her romance with Bob Dylan: “If we’d had some little plum-crushers, how our lives would be. The kids would be singing now, and Bobby...
It’s hard enough to get a new word into the dictionary. But what happens when lawmakers get involved? New Jersey legislators passed a resolution as part of an anti-bullying campaign urging dictionary companies to adopt the word upstander. It...
