Home » Segments » You Must Be Smelling Yourself

You Must Be Smelling Yourself

Play episode

Isabel Wilkerson’s magnificent history, The Warmth of Other Suns, chronicles the Great Migration of American blacks from the Southern United States starting in the era of Jim Crow. In it, Wilkerson quotes someone who says of another person: “You must be smelling yourself.” This saying describes someone “conceited” or otherwise full of himself. This is part of a complete episode.

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

More from this show

Catillate, Agelastic, and Latibulate

Inkhorn terms are bloated, fancy, show-off words formed by cramming Latin and Greek roots into English. The name references little bottles made from animal horn that 14th-century English scribes used to carry their ink. Lexicographer Henry...

All Out Are In Free!

Kylie Ryan, an elementary-school teacher in Seattle, Washington, remembers that when she played hide-and-seek as a child, the call for everyone to come in was alle alle oxen free. Are there other versions? Yes, and because these sayings were not...

Segments