“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 person to say them. As Berra...
It’s common for Southern moms to promise their children a Yankee dime if they complete a chore. The thing is a Yankee dime is a motherly kiss — much less exciting than an actual dime. It’s a phrase that plays on Yankee thrift, and goes back to at...
Remember misunderstanding certain words as a child? Maybe you figured “cat burglars” only stole cats, or assumed guerrilla fighters must be angry apes. Martha and Grant discuss childhood misunderstandings about language. Also this week, Yankee...
A North Carolina man says he was surprised as a child when he did a chore for his grandmother, and the Yankee dime she promised him turned out to be a peck on the cheek. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Paid with a Yankee Dime”...
Yankee dime n. a (perfunctory) kiss. Editorial Note: This term appears to originate in the South. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Yankee dime n.— «“Yankee dime” is a slang term used in some sections of the United States, particularly in the South, to denote a kiss, just as “Dutch quarter” is used to mean a hug. In some sections “Quaker nickel” is employed in the same sense as...