Amelia in Traverse City, Michigan, says her grandfather used to pull her close and whisper There are no bones in ice cream. He has a point there, but where did the phrase come from? That phrase seems to have arisen as part of a goofy joke making the...
Terry, a health-care worker in Traverse City, Michigan, says she and her colleagues use the term cohorting to describe the act of grouping patients with COVID-19 in designated facilities. But they’re not sure what word to use to denote...
A Traverse City, Michigan, man is curious about the phrase his mother-in-law uses: breathing a scab. She uses it to indicate that someone who’s pushing limits or otherwise on thin ice metaphorically. The phrase is far more commonly breeding a...
Someone who is likened to “a dog in the manger” is acting spitefully, claiming something they don’t even need or want in order to prevent others from having it. The story that inspired this phrase goes all the way back to ancient...
Jennifer from Traverse City, Michigan, asks about using reef to mean applying a lot of force or torque, as in reefing on a stuck window or stubborn jar. This regional verb likely comes from the sailing use of reef, to reduce a sail by taking in part...
There are doobies, and then there are good doobees. A caller from Traverse City, Michigan, says her husband refers to himself as a good doobee whenever he’d clean the house or pay the bills. The phrase goes back to Romper Room, a...
