To joner means to “bring bad luck to” or “jinx.” This term is a corruption of the name Jonah, the biblical figure who initially resisted a divine command. His presence on board a ship supposedly caused a great storm at sea...
Hayley, a poet, grew up in Kansas City, then moved to Minnesota’s Twin Cities. After the last two winters there, she’s begun to wonder: Have English speakers ever referred to more than four seasons in English? Do other cultures measure...
Take a look back at some notable words and phrases from 2017: Remember path of totality? How about milkshake duck? Also, a committee has to choose a new mascot for a school’s sports teams. They want to call them the Knights, as in the fighters...
A listener in Enterprise, Alabama, recalls that when a storm was approaching his grandfather would say “It’s going to come up a Joe Moore.” The slang term Joe Moore comes from the word mojo, meaning a magic spell or magic power. By...
Did pirates ever actually say “shiver me timbers”? And why would they be shivering in the Caribbean, anyway? Actually, this saying has nothing to do with being cold, and pirates probably didn’t say it. The phrase goes back to the...
Careful what you criticize! Not long ago, some words that sound perfectly normal today were considered gauche and grating on the ear. If the complainers had had their way, we couldn’t say a word like pessimism or use contact as a verb! Also...