David in Los Angeles says his churchgoing mother avoids swear words so faithfully that even a stubbed toe can bring out oh, piffle. Piffle has been around since at least the late 19th century, and to American ears it often sounds distinctly British...
The exclamations “I’ll be John Brown!” and “I’ll be John Browned!” have a sticky history, going back to view that the abolitionist John Brown was doing something damnable by arming a slave revolt. This is part of...
tamade n.— «Ma works from a modest office in Beijing’s university district decorated with maps and model planes. He pointed out that the Chinese have a nickname for TMD, or Theater Missile Defense, an anti-missile system proposed by...
