Tom and Jerry
n.— «Of course, one more permutation of eggnog needs to be addressed. How did the hot version come to be called a “Tom and Jerry”? When I was a kid in Minnesota, the eggnog my brothers and I furtively gulped right from the carton contained plenty of rum flavoring, but no actual alcohol. We couldn’t help noticing our parents sipped a warmed and considerably more alcoholic version, called Tom and Jerry, out of pressed-glass punch bowls at their Christmas parties.» —“Nothing but nog” by Eat and Drink: Robert Sietsema Salon Dec. 19, 2006. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
After our conversation about towns with extremely short names, many listeners wrote to tell us about Why, Arizona. Others pointed out that there are towns called Ely in Iowa, Minnesota, and Nevada. Other super-short appellations include Rye, New...
Joey from Orono, Minnesota, has been learning Italian and its many idioms, which makes him wonder if there are other languages that can simply be learned in a classroom without input from a larger cultural context of new and evolving expressions...