Valerie from Los Angeles, California, is curious about the admonition don’t buy the hype. Don’t buy the hype about the word hyperbole, though, because that’s likely not the source of the word “hype.” This is part of a...
Sue in Santee, California, heard do it up brown in older movies and wondered what it meant. The phrase usually means to do something thoroughly, excellently, or to perfection, likely from the image of browning food just right. Related forms such as...
Byron from Norfolk, Virginia, ran across goldbrick in a 1950s military police training film, where it meant someone useless or unreliable. The slang goes back to a 19th-century swindle in which scammers painted lead or other metals gold and sold...
Cara, a real-estate lawyer in Rhode Island, was surprised by gazump, meaning to cheat a home buyer at the last minute, often by raising the price just before the contract is signed. The word turns up in the United States in the 1920s, apparently...
A Dallas man says his father, who served in Vietnam, signed letters back home to the family with the phrase “don’t take any wooden nickels.” The hosts explain that this expression means “don’t let anyone swindle you...