An Arkansas listener is puzzled when a neighbor notes that the weather turned off cold. This expression is part of a long-standing American dialect tradition that includes come off cold, come off hot, or turned off pretty. Such phrases show up across the U.S., and are attested as early as the 1840s. The broader sense of come off meaning “to turn out,” or “to result” is even older, as in, the “the event came off as planned.” This is part of a complete episode.
Susie Dent’s murder mystery Guilty by Definition (Bookshop|Amazon) follows a lexicographer in Oxford who becomes a sleuth of a different kind, seeking the culprit in a long-unsolved killing. A lexicographer herself, Dent includes lots of obscure and...
Mona from Riverview, Florida, grew up understanding that the word schmooze, which comes from Yiddish, meant simply “to mingle and chat” at parties, but when she fondly referred to her friend as a schmoozer, the friend was insulted, assuming that a...
