What’s up with ketchup? The shifting history and spelling of the name of this condiment. For centuries, ketchup was a fishy sauce originating in Asia—the tomatoes came only later! Plus, a new book shows what’s lost when a language dies: when there...
The cardboard cylinder left after the last sheet of toilet, tissue, or wrapping paper comes off the roll has inspired families to make up a lot of names for the tube or the sounds you can make with it. These include oh-ah, oh-ah, drit-drit, dah-dah...
What do you call the cardboard roll inside a roll of toilet paper? Many families have their own name for it, including der der and oh-ah, oh-ah. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Der Der, Oh-Ah” You’re...
Columnist Lucy Kellaway wrote in the Financial Times about feeling less anxious and fearful in the workplace as she gets older. She concluded that such feelings are bog standard, a British expression meaning “common” or “widespread...
After we spoke a couple weeks ago about eponymous laws, a listener who works as a janitor gave us one of his own: Given any two rolls of toilet paper, the larger roll will get smaller before the smaller gets used up. This is part of a complete...
Did you ever use a tilly ticket in the bathroom?