Don from Munday, Texas, is fond of the phrase You can put your boots in the oven, but that don’t make ’em biscuits, which is a way of saying that even if you call something by a different name, that doesn’t change its essential nature. A...
It’s hard to imagine now, but there was a time when people disagreed over the best word to use when answering the phone. Alexander Graham Bell suggested answering with ahoy! but Thomas Edison was partial to hello! A fascinating new book about...
Sherry from Green Bay, Wisconsin, remembers that whenever she balked at doing a chore as a kid, her grandmother would say If ifs and ands were pots and pans, a tinker would have no trade. Her grandmother was suggesting that merely paying lip service...
Don’t break my plate or saw off my bench just yet is a colorful way of saying I’ll be back. It’s somewhat like the phrase he hung up his spoon, referring to someone who has died. This is part of a complete episode.
A listener reports that her Brooklyn-born mother used to exclaim, upon seeing something remarkable, “Don’t that jar your preserves?” This is part of a complete episode.
What shall we call those drivers who take so much time when the left-turn light changes to green that you miss your chance to go and sit through another red light? Our conversation about that prompted a whole slew of emails from listeners...