A flashlight emits a steady beam of light. So what’s the flash part of that word about? Also, if you’re a nervous Nellie, you’re skittish and indecisive—both characteristics of an American politician who earned that nickname in the...
Sigrin writes from Albany, New York, that she misheard our earlier conversation about the expression shaving yak hair meaning “performing a monotonous, tedious task.” At first she thought we said shaving gnat hair, which she figures is...
Greg in San Antonio, Texas, who works in the tech industry, says he and his co-workers use the phrase shaving yak hair to describe a monotonous, tedious task. The phrase was inspired by a 1991 segment of The Ren and Stimpy Show, in which the title...
yak n.— «Their discovery of cognac—“yak” as they affectionately call it—started a fashion among young black Americans who, in a practice considered heresy in France, mix it with fruit juices to make cocktails such as French Connection and...