Tanya, calling from Xiamen, China, and originally from Marshall, Michigan, asks about dilly-dally, a phrase that surprised her coming from her 24-year-old brother. Dilly-dally is a reduplicated form of dally, from Anglo-French dalier, meaning “to...
A cumshaw artist is that clever, resourceful person in a military unit who always seems to manage to procure whatever’s needed. This term apparently derives from similar-sounding words in Mandarin, kan hsieh, or kam-si?, in the language spoken...
A Seattle-area veteran remembers that in Vietnam he and others like him were known as cumshaw artists. They were the guys who scared up and “permanently borrowed” whatever their unit needed— gasoline, vehicle parts, or whiskey for a party. He’s...