Hey there, and welcome to our latest newsletter. Latest Broadcast Did you catch our examination of the phrase like a boss? It comes from hip-hop but was popularized by a parody. In the same episode, we took a look at infra dig and explored old...
Last week, Mike M. sent us an email asking us for help. He wrote, I’ve been reading a lot of technical literature recently, but I need a break. Can you recommend a book that uses puns or word plays. Something light. Of course, there’s...
We’ve heard a lot lately about great athletic rivalries, most notably between Olympic swimmers Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte. So it’s worth noting the source of this watery word. In ancient Rome, the word rivus meant “a small...
Mary Jean Mueckenheim of Windsor, Vt., asks: What’s the origin of the word mutt? Our recent “Double Dog Dare” quiz about mixed-breed dogs has her thinking about that term. She wonders, “Did the word mutt come from the word...
Hey, friends! This past weekend, we re-aired an episode you may have missed. Among other things, we talked anatomical eponyms in medicine, such as Achilles heel and fallopian tubes, which are being phased out; litotes, which use negatives to say...
From listener Richard Gaillard comes this question: I lived in North Carolina most of my life and in the North Carolina mountains for 11 years. Working as a carpenter I heard lots of slang terms. One exclamation (almost expletive) I heard often, and...