Sister Patricia Marie in San Antonio, Texas, wonders why we use three sheets to the wind to describe someone who is inebriated. In nautical terminology, some of the ropes, or lines, attached to the corner of a sail are called sheets. If three of those sheets come loose, the boat is extremely difficult to control, much like a drunk person stumbling around. This is part of a complete episode.
More from this show
Unparalleled misalignments are pairs of phrases in which the words in one phrase are each synonyms of the words in the other, but the phrases themselves mean different things. For example, the phrase blanket statement can be paired with cover story...
Jameela in Charlotte, North Carolina, says her family refers to their television’s remote control as the clicker, but her friends insist on calling it the remote. These devices go by other names as well, including doofer, flicker, zapper, and...