Who is she from home? meaning “What’s her maiden name?” is a construction common in communities with significant Polish heritage. It’s what linguists call a calque — a word or phrase from another language translated literally into another. From home...
In Spanish, mordida literally means “a bite,” but it’s a kind of bribe. It predates the English phrase “put the bite on someone” by more than a hundred years. One proposed etymology for the Spanish term is that divers rescuing treasure from wrecked...
Evergreen State College in Washington is certainly in the running for best school mascot, with the Geoduck. But you can’t forget the UC Santa Cruz Fighting Banana Slugs, or the Scottsdale Community College Fighting Artichokes. The term mascot itself...
You pick up what you think a glass of water and take a sip, but it turns out to be Sprite. What’s the word for that sensation when you’re expecting one thing and taste something else? Also, slang from college campuses, like ratchet and dime piece...
Blueblood, a term often used to refer to WASPy or patrician folks, goes back to the 1700s and the Spanish term sangre azul. It described the class of people who never had to work outside or expose themselves to the sun, so blue veins would show...
Who is Boo-Boo the Fool? A listener wonders if this African-American character has any relation the Puerto Rican fool, Juan Bobo. Martha draws a connection to the Spanish term bobo, meaning “fool,” and its Latin root balbus, meaning “stammerer”...
