Cat face is a cute way to describe something like a piece of fruit or a tree that’s grown in on itself, giving it a puckered kind of indentation. Particularly in the African-American community, it’s used to denote a wrinkle to be ironed...
The saying “I don’t chew my cabbage twice,” means I’m not going to repeat myself. The ancient Romans, by the way, ate cabbage as a protection against hangovers, but detested the smell of twice-cooked cabbage. This is part of...
There’s an old Texan proverb that goes “Lick by lick, the cow ate the grindstone.” In other words, if you’re dogged enough, anything is possible. This is part of a complete episode.
Even though blogs can’t read and newspapers can’t speak, it’s totally appropriate to write “the blog reads,” or “the newspaper says.” This is part of a complete episode.
We spoke on a recent show about the joking consolation parents offer to a crying child, “It’ll be better before you’re married.” A podcast listener in Siberia emailed to say that in Russian, a similar saying translates to...
A listener named Kio from Los Angeles says she spent some time in England, and while her colleagues there claimed that her valley girl slang was rubbing off on them, she herself picked up plenty of English slang. This is a classic linguistic...