A bartender wonders about the origin of the term jockey box. In his world, a jockey box is a metal container for ice. However, in some parts of the western U.S., a jockey box is the glove compartment of a car, and much earlier, the term referred to...
Greetings, all! In our most recent show, we talk about great words for Scrabble, plus "madcap" comedy, mondegreens, "No way, Jose!" "hubba hubba," and the name of that flourish underneath John Hancock's John Hancock...
A Texas listener recounts an ongoing debate in her family’s kitchen over the exact definition of the word spatula. Is it the kitchen tool used to spread icing and level measuring cups? Something you use to flip a pancake? That item with the...
Office 2.0 n.— «Savvy office workers frustrated that their on-the-job computer tools don’t function as smoothly as, say, an Apple iPod are taking matters into their own hands. No longer are they relying on company technicians, or...
It’s one of the biggest grammatical bugaboos of all, the one that bedevils even the most earnest English students: Is it lie or lay? Martha shares a trick for remembering the difference. See below for her clip-and-save chart of these verbs...
chop-chop adj.— «Their monkey business was recently uncovered, they have been caught red handed dipping their dirty fingers in the cookie jar like the P1.3 million auto-clave scam. The machine used to sterilize hospital tools failed to...
