Debbie from Keokuk, Iowa, shares a funny story about her family’s tradition of speed-cleaning the house if guests were coming over. Her mother would declare, “Quick, guys! Whited sepulchre approach!” Her use of the term whited sepulchre alluded to Matthew 23:27, the Bible verse in which Jesus calls out hypocrites, saying that they are “like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.” In antiquity, for centuries, the expression whited sepulchre was used in English to mean “a hypocrite.” Other humorous expressions for frantic last-minute cleaning include, making a lasagna, mummification, scoop-and-shove, and white tornado. This is part of a complete episode.
If you start the phrase when in Rome… but don’t finish the sentence with do as the Romans do, or say birds of a feather… without adding flock together, you’re engaging in anapodoton, a term of rhetoric that refers to the...
There are many proposed origins for the exclamation of surprise, holy Toledo! But the most likely one involves not the city in Ohio, but instead Toledo, Spain, which has been a major religious center for centuries in the traditions of both Islam and...
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