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...
I’ll be John Brown! and I’ll be John Browned! are mild oaths that go back to John Brown’s 1859 raid on the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. The abolitionist planned to arm enslaved people for revolt and was caught and hanged. Depending...
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...
