Quntos KunQuest has been incarcerated at Angola, the Louisiana State Penitentiary, since 1997. His new novel This Life (Bookshop|Amazon), which draws on his experiences there, has earned acclaim in The New Yorker. KunQuest’s characters are vividly...
What’s the origin of the term listless? Does it mean you can’t find the piece of paper with the groceries you need? No. Listless shares a root with the English word lust. In its most literal sense, listless means “without lust,” or “lacking want or...
A bartender wonders about the origin of the term jockey box. In his world, a jockey box is a metal container for ice. However, in some parts of the western U.S., a jockey box is the glove compartment of a car, and much earlier, the term referred to...
Downton Abbey, a program featured on Masterpiece Theater, provided a handful of colorful expressions that date surprisingly far back. “Like it or lump it,” meaning “deal with it,” is found at least as early as 1830 and takes from the old verb lump...
Marie in Anna, Texas, grew up hearing her mother announce, Home again, home again, jiggity-jig at the end of every family trip. The phrase comes from a Mother Goose rhyme: “To market, to market, to buy a fat pig, home again, home again, jiggity-jig...
Nathaniel, a vegetarian in Vermillion, South Dakota, encountered a tavern sandwich after moving from Kansas City and wondered why a word for a drinking place also names a sandwich. The sandwich is a loose-meat sandwich on a hamburger bun, familiar...
