Stanley Wilkins, a listener from Tyler, Texas, shares the idiom nervous as a pole cat in a perfume parlor. A polecat, more commonly known as a skunk, also fronts such gems as mean as a polecat, nervous as a pole cat in a standoff with a porcupine...
A die-hard Tyler Perry fan is curious about an emphatic expression she’s heard in some of his movies: Hell-to-the-no. What’s up with the extra words? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Hell-to-the-No” Hello...
simming n.—Gloss: From “simulating.” «It took a room full of networked computers called a “render farm” to do in about 14 months what would have taken a single machine 16 years: churn out digital scenes precisely modeled after...
kaleidic adj.— «Shackle argued that we live in a “kaleidic society, interspersing its moments or intervals of order, assurance and beauty with sudden disintegration and a cascade into a new pattern.”» —“Nobody Expects the...
privilege speech n.— «A few minutes after he received an ovation from his colleagues, Rep. Leo Berman, R-Tyler, blasted him in what is called “privilege speech” on the House floor.» —“Swinford gains colleagues’...
pant-load n.— «You can recognize notoriety by the three-name phenomenon. John Wilkes Booth, John Wayne Bobbitt, Mary Tyler Moore (just kidding). Shoot, it’s already happened to Harding’s pant-load of a bodyguard, Shawn Eric Eckardt...

