It used to be that you called any mixed-breed dog a mutt. But at today’s dog parks, you’re just as likely to run into schnugs, bassadors, and dalmadoodles. Also, if someone has a suntan, you might say he’s brown as a berry. But...
As members of The Andy Griffith Show Rerun Watchers Club know, Andy sometimes shook his head and declared, You’re a bird in this world, meaning that someone was unique or otherwise remarkable. The expression appears to have originated with the...
Sorry, travel industry PR people: honeyteering, as in “doing volunteer work on your honeymoon,” won’t catch on as a term. At least we hope not. This is part of a complete episode.
The idiom buy the farm, meaning to die, could’ve originated from similar phrases, like bought the plot, as in the plot where one is buried. This is part of a complete episode.
A whole nother may feel right to say, at least informally, and you will find it in dictionaries, but it’s better to avoid it in formal writing and speech. This is part of a complete episode.
My postillion has been struck by lightning is one of many lines found in foreign language phrase books that have no real purpose. Mark Twain complained about the same thing in his essay, “The Awful German Language.” This is part of a...