Nora in Rock Hill, South Carolina, says her great-great-grandfather’s name, Workman Hardlabor Honeycutt, reflected the family’s Quaker religious belief in the sanctity of hard work. It’s an example of what are called virtue names or grace names that parents bestow on their children in hopes that they’ll grow up to embody those qualities. More elaborate ones include Hate-evil, Be-courteous, and Search-the-scriptures. In the 19th century, a man with the three-syllable first name Preserved (/pri-ZUR-vid/), as in “preserved from sin,” rose to become a prominent New York shipping merchant. He and his relative, the future New York State governor Hamilton Fish, shared the same last name, which meant the merchant’s full name was Preserved Fish. This is part of a complete episode.
What makes a great first line of a book? How do the best authors put together an initial sentence that draws you in and makes you want to read more? We’re talking about the openings of such novels as George Orwell’s 1984...
To slip someone a mickey means to doctor a drink and give it to an unwitting recipient. The phrase goes back to Mickey Finn of the Lone Star Saloon in Chicago, who in the late 19th century was notorious for drugging certain customers and relieving...
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