Jonathan, who lives in Dallas, Texas, is originally from Prince Edward Island, Canada, where he often heard the phrase fill your boots, an injunction that means “help yourself.” Variants include dig in and fill your boots, eat up and...
A Norwegian slang phrase rendered in English as that’s totally Texas describes a wild, chaotic, or mixed-up situation, not usually aimed at a person. The image comes from the lawless Wild West of old movies and TV, where gunslingers, dusty towns...
When Matt was growing up in western North Carolina, he heard the word gaum, also spelled gom, meaning a mess. Someone misbehaving might be described as gauming around, or something was gaumed up, meaning messed up, or a person was dismissed as...
Books for sale, books for free, and wisdom passed down through the ages. Libraries aren’t just repositories for books — they’re often a great place to find gently used volumes for sale. Or you can always visit a “little free...
The phrase “I don’t know him from Adam” suggests that if the person were standing next to the person in Western tradition thought to be earliest human being, the two would be indistinguishable. The phrase “I don’t know...
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...