People who hunt treasure with metal detectors have a lingo all their own. Canslaw means the shreds of aluminum cans left after a lawnmower ran over them. And gold dance? That’s the happy jig you do if you find something far more valuable than...
In a lovely essay on the shared experience of theater audiences, Wesley Morris, critic at large for The New York Times, memorably describes weeping in the dark with fellow audience members as offering “applause with mucus and salt.” This...
Sam from Nichols, New York, reports that as a boy, he misunderstood the lyrics to the song “Home on the Range.” What, he wondered, is so discouraging about the word seldom? This is part of a complete episode.
A lovely evening of classical music at San Diego’s new Rady Shell at Jacobs Park leads to a conversation with an audio engineer about the term cocktail party effect, referring to the brain’s ability to focus in on the sound of one...
Michelle calls from the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania to ask about it’s been a minute meaning “It’s been a while.” Why would we use a phrase that usually means “sixty seconds” for a period of time that might...
Amelia in Traverse City, Michigan, says her grandfather used to pull her close and whisper There are no bones in ice cream. He has a point there, but where did the phrase come from? That phrase seems to have arisen as part of a goofy joke making the...