“If you come to a fork in the road… take it!” Baseball legend Yogi Berra was famous for such head-scratching observations. What most people don’t realize, though, is that the former Yankees star often wasn’t the first...
The idiom “two heads are better than one” doesn’t exist in quite the same form in Spanish, but there is a variation that translates to, “four eyes are better than two.” In Hungarian, there’s a phrase that’s...
If you don’t have anything nice to say, say it like Shakespeare: Thou unhandsome smush-mouthed mush-rump! Thou obscene rug-headed hornbeast! The Shakespeare Insult Generator helps you craft creative zingers by mixing and matching the...
Isaac from Portland, Oregon, asks whether the workplace verb for tossing ideas around is spitball or spiffball. The standard form is spitball, from the schoolroom trick of wadding up paper, moistening it with saliva, and launching it at a wall or...
Right off the bat, it’s easy to think of several everyday expressions that derive from America’s pastime–including “right off the bat.” The Dickson Baseball Dictionary catalogues not only those contributions but also...
The exclamation “crime in Italy” is a variation of criminently, or criminy, both euphemisms for Christ. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Crime in Italy” Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hi, this is Barbara...