Louis in Reno, Nevada, grew up in Montreal, Canada, speaking Québécois French. His father was fond of saying j’aime vacher le matin, puis je prends mon temps, meaning “I like to loaf and take my time in the morning.” Vacher comes from French vache, “cow,” and the verb vacher has to do with the idea of cows being seen as idle or lazy. A similar expression used in France is avoir l’air d’une vache qui regarde passer un train, literally, “to look like a cow gazing at a passing train.” A different animal is represented in another phrase along these lines in Québécois French: chienner, or metaphorically, “to be lazy like a dog.” For more about Québécois, check out the Dictionnaire Québécois D’aujourd’hui (Amazon) This is part of a complete episode.
According to Gobsmacked: The British Invasion of American English (Bookshop|Amazon) by Ben Yagoda, the word smarmy, meaning “unctuous” or “ingratiating,” may come from a 19th-century magazine contest, in which readers sent in...
Mary Beth in Greenville, South Carolina, wonders: Why do we say four-oh-nine for the number 409 instead of four-zero-nine or four-aught-nine? What are the rules for saying either zero or oh or aught or ought to indicate that arithmetical symbol...
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