In Spanish, mordida literally means “a bite,” but it’s a kind of bribe. It predates the English phrase “put the bite on someone” by more than a hundred years. One proposed etymology for the Spanish term is that divers rescuing treasure from wrecked...
Did pirates ever actually say “shiver me timbers”? And why would they be shivering in the Caribbean, anyway? Actually, this saying has nothing to do with being cold, and pirates probably didn’t say it. The phrase goes back to the 1700’s and was...
Careful what you criticize! Not long ago, some words that sound perfectly normal today were considered gauche and grating on the ear. If the complainers had had their way, we couldn’t say a word like pessimism or use contact as a verb! Also, we’ll...
Back in 1867 a newspaper in Nevada used the verb pungle to lovely effect: “All night the clouds pungled their fleecy treasure.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “More Pungle” We were talking about the word pungle early on and how...
Grant reads from a listener’s favorite poem by Lisel Mueller called “Why We Tell Stories.” It reads in part: “We sat by the fire in our caves,/ and because we were poor, we made up a tale/ about a treasure mountain/ that would open only for us.”...
detectorist n.— «Just because you’ve got a metal detector doesn’t entitle you to charge unbidden onto other people’s property, Alan cautions. Detectorists must obtain permission to go onto private turf and must register with public lands, state...
