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...
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 scab...
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 Greece. This is...
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 children’s...
You call the repairman to fix a balky garage door, but when he gets there, it inexplicably works. You summon a plumber, only to find that when he arrives, your toilet’s no longer leaking, and you’re out $150. Or you discover that somewhere between...
