Jury-rigged is the older form for a makeshift repair, likely from nautical jury mast, an emergency mast rigged when the real one was lost or broken. Sean in Michigan has also heard jerry-rigged and, from an IT co-worker, Gary-rigged. The jerry...
Some of the world’s greatest writers had to do their work while holding down a day job. William Faulkner and Anthony Trollope toiled as postal clerks. Zora Neal Hurston trained as an anthropologist. Vladimir Nabokov was a lepidopterist who...
“Not the brightest bulb in the Christmas tree lights,” “The wind is blowing but nothing’s moving,” “A few tacos short of a combo platter.” After Grant tells a story on himself, the hosts discuss euphemistic...
Martha tells the story behind the term Tom Swifty. Grant shares some more funny examples from the A Way with Words discussion forum. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “The Origin of “Tom Swifty”” You’re...
A Woodbridge, Connecticut, caller tells the story of coming across the following definition for jungftak in Webster’s New Twentieth Century Dictionary (1943): “n. A Persian bird, the male of which had only one wing, on the right side...
“You knucklehead!” Where’d we get an epithet like that? Grant tells the story about the wartime cartoon that helped popularize the term. Check out the adventures of R.F. Knucklehead in LIFE magazine. More about cartoons used for...