Fernando in San Antonio, Texas, is curious about the use of the term holiday to mean a space on a wall that’s been covered unevenly and requires repainting. This usage goes back to the shipbuilding industry of the 1700s, when workers tarring...
Olivia, a sixth-grader in Somerville, New Jersey, says she and her classmates were flummoxed by a word on their spelling-bee study list: xylyl. It’s a term from chemistry, referring to a group of atoms derived from a liquid called xylene. One...
Tautologies in names are pretty funny, like the Sahara Desert, which basically means “Desert Desert,” or the country of East Timor, which in Malay means “East East.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of...
If you’ve got crummy handwriting, you might say that it looks like something written with a thumbnail dipped in tar. But go ahead, dip that thumbnail and write to us anyway. If you’ve got notable handwriting of any sort, we want to see...
It’s been a puzzle to track the origin of the saying good night, sleep tight, see you on the big drum. Perhaps it’s an innocent mixup that takes from the Robert Burns poem Tam o’ Shanter, which reads, “good night, sleep...
A native of Southern Pennsylvania has always used the term macadam in place of asphalt. Martha traces the word from an old gravel road to the modern day tarmac. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Macadam” Hello, you have...