Clodhoppers fits Amber’s 1990s platform shoes all too well: the word first meant a rustic or rube, the sort of person imagined as literally hopping over clods of earth while working the land. That insulting sense shows up in old newspapers as far...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski is puzzling over proverbs around the world, but he asks for help remembering the last word of each. For example, he knows there’s a German proverb that translates as “A clear conscience is a soft willow.” No, that’s not quite...
Stacy from Marquette, Michigan, says her German-born grandfather would warn that she was going to get a putsch or potch, meaning a “a gentle slap” on her bottom, if she misbehaved. The German verb Patsch means “slap.” The related dialectal German...
Why do we say that someone who’s especially fortunate is endowed with the luck of the Irish? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “The So-Called Luck of the Irish” Hi there. You have A Way with Words. Hey, Martha. This is Steve. Where...
The word tchotchke, pronounced CHOTCH-kee, means “knickknack” or “trinket.” Also spelled chotchkie or tsatske, this word was borrowed into English from Yiddish tshatshke, and is cognate with several words that mean “trinket” or “plaything” in Slavic...
Katya in Jacksonville, Florida, says her German-speaking parents think that when someone expresses a wish, it’s hilarious to respond with the German saying Wenn Oma Räder hätte, wäre sie ein Omnibus, which means “If Grandma had wheels, she’d be a...