A kindergartener misunderstands the name of an event at his school, insisting to his mother that he attended a pepper alley, not a pep rally. Let’s hope that’s the case, because pepper alley is actually 19th-century boxing slang for...
How would you like to be welcomed to married life by friends and neighbors descending on your home for a noisy celebration, tearing off the labels of all your canned foods and scattering cornflakes in your bed? That tradition has almost died out...
A listener in Abilene, Texas, wonders about the expression that smarts! The verb to smart, meaning to sting or cause sharp pain, goes back more than a thousand years. The adjective smart, meaning intelligent, evolved from that sense of something...
The mother of eight-year-old twins wonders why one of her girls habitually adds “dun-dun-DUN!” to sentences in everyday conversation. The hosts suspect it’s related to the audio element known as a “sting” in television...
off-siding n.— «Traffic officers working with Transport for London and Tower Hamlets Council are manning the operation from 7am to 9am to speak to motorcyclists about the dangers of the practice known as ‘off-siding’—dodging round...
piquerism n. the derivation of pleasure, especially sexual gratification, from stabbing another person. Etymological Note: From the French piquer ‘to sting or prick (someone or something).’ (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)