Hi, all — In this week’s archive edition, we discuss not-so-smartphones, “Erin” vs. “Aaron,” “who” vs. “whom,” what happens when you “overegg the pudding,” and what it means to...
Hi-ho, Martha and Grant here! Did you miss us? We've been super-busy, working hard to keep bringing you more entertaining conversation about language. Thanks for the cards, letters, and phone calls in which you share your love, too. We...
coconut telegraph n.— «SSB networks are simply an organized meeting place on a particular radio frequency at an established time, where an unlimited number of boaters can meet and share the latest weather forecasts and local news. Nets...
Brent from San Diego asks why the expression “keep your eyes peeled” uses peeled, and whether it has anything to do with birds of prey opening their eyes. The phrase is spelled P-E-E-L, and its likely 19th-century sense is simply that the eyelids...
stay behind n.— «I’ll make it worse. I think he’s put people left. He’s put people back. They call it a stay behind. It’s sort of an intelligence term of art. When you leave a country and, you know, you’ve...
skip v.— «According to the press accounts, many snowmobile drivers like to “skip” their machines over open water.…A snowmobile cannot change direction while “skipping”—it can only go in a straight line. If a snowmobile...