It’s hard to imagine now, but there was a time when people disagreed over the best word to use when answering the phone. Alexander Graham Bell suggested answering with ahoy! but Thomas Edison was partial to hello! A fascinating new book about...
Sam from St. Paul, Minnesota, says his dad often used the expressions Do you think I just fell off the turnip truck? and I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck, meaning “I’m not naive” or “Do you think I was born...
tumshie n.— «While doing my weekly shopping in our local supermarket, I was choosing a turnip and was appalled at the price of one—70-90p depending on size and they were tiny!…You’d be a right “tumshie” to pay that much...
tumshie n. a stupid or foolish person. Etymological Note: Originally jocular or colloquial Scots for ‘turnip.’ Common insult tumshie-head and other comparisons of a head to a turnip probably preceded the stand-alone tumshie. (source: Double-Tongued...
tumshie
n.— «A jocular or colloq. name for a turnip.» —Dictionary of the Scots Language , 1947. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
turnip n.— «Turnip: Inexperienced Rainbows who “turn up” without proper equipment or clothing for the wilderness.» —“Slang used by the Rainbow Family” Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Wash.) July 3, 2004...