Home Β» Valentine Blacker

TagValentine Blacker

Episode 1519

Keep Your Powder Dry

Jacuzzi and silhouette are eponyms β€” that is, they derive from the names of people. An Italian immigrant to California invented the bubbly hot tub called a jacuzzi. And the word silhouette commemorates a penny-pinching treasury secretary who lasted...

Keep Your Powder Dry

Shelby calls from Rockville, Indiana, to ask about the origin of the phrase keep your powder dry. Many people surmise it derives from words uttered by Oliver Cromwell, but there’s no recorded evidence of this. The phrase first pops up in the...

Recent posts