Susan in Virginia Beach, Virginia, says that whenever she looked sad as a child, her grandmother would say she looked like somebody licked the red off her candy. This phrase goes back at least to the 1920s, and refers to licking the red coloring off...
In Hungarian, there’s a whole genre of silly jokes that have to do with an agresszív kismalac, or “aggressive piglet.” Each joke ends with an absurd punchline shouted obnoxiously. There are collections of these jokes online, as...
Robert from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, was surprised to find when working in Siberia that children there are taught to use different words to say the sound an animal makes. For example, English speakers say cock-a-doodle-doo, but children in Siberia...
Jesse from Newport News, Virginia, asks about potato quality, slang for an image or gadget that seems conspicuously bad. Online, recorded with a potato has appeared for at least a decade in YouTube comments about a heavily pixelated or otherwise...
Rachel from San Diego, California, says that her grandfather would occasionally answer questions with the phrase wet ducks don’t fly at night. It’s a variation of a wet bird never flies at night, a phrase that figures in a goofy joke...
Kathy from Evansville, Indiana, is bothered when she hears younger people use to verse as a verb, as in “Who are they versing?” and “We versed that team last week.” This term arose out of misunderstanding versus, a...
