In New York and northern New Jersey, a children’s playground slide was once commonly known as sliding pond or sliding pon. The terms reflect the considerable influence of Dutch settlement in that area, the Dutch word baan meaning a “path” and...
The piece of playground equipment you slide down goes by several different names, depending on which part of the U.S. you’re from: slide, sliding board, sliding plank, and sliding pond. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “What People...
A New York City listener recalls that as a youth in Erie, Pennsylvania, he and his peers referred to a peanut butter and jelly sandwich as a choke-and-slide or choke-n-slide. It’s a reference to the qualities of the sticky peanut butter and the...
When hiking off-trail, it’s important to keep an eye on where you’ve been as well as where you’re going. Otherwise, you run the risk of what experienced hikers call being “ledged out”, which means you’ve descended to a point where you can’t go any...
In English, we might say that someone born to a life of luxury was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. In Swedish, though, the image is different. Someone similarly spoiled is said to “slide in on a shrimp sandwich.” For more picturesque idioms...
When you were growing up, what did you call that piece of playground equipment that you climb up and then slide down? A former New Jersey resident recalls that when her family moved to Indiana, her playmates were startled when she called it a...