Iris from Cave Junction, Oregon, wonders about the expressions get on the stick, meaning get going, and piping hot, meaning extremely hot. While some have associated the phrase get on the stick with an automotive origin, a more likely etymology...
You know how you can feel full after a meal, but then dessert arrives and you suddenly find a little more room? The Japanese have a term for this: betsubara, which literally means other stomach. In English, people often call it their dessert stomach...
What other names could a team use if they realize it’s time to give up calling themselves the “Redskins”? Also, what should we call those people who don’t turn left as as soon as the traffic light goes green? Plus, the...
The Latin phrase mens sana in corpore sano, or “a healthy mind in a healthy body,” comes from one of the Satires of the ancient Roman poet Juvenal. Fast-forward to 1977, when a Japanese manufacturer of athletic footwear was looking for a...
The Japanese have a term for the act of buying books but letting them pile up without reading them. It’s tsundoku. This is part of a complete episode.
Travis in Austin, Texas, has a dispute with friends: is the popular sorting game called paper, scissors, rock, as he believes? Or is it rock, paper, scissors? In the United States, the latter is the more common variant, although people have...