Andres from San Diego, California, wonders: Why do we refer to jail as the pokey? The term, along with its variant pogie or pogey, likely goes back to a word for workhouse, a prison where people worked as part of their sentence, much like...
Why are those tiny, white flowers that grace bouquets called baby’s breath? Some people say they like newborn’s breath, but the name may simply reflect the fact that these blossoms are small and delicate. Their genus name, Gypsophila...
Rasoul from Mashad, Iran, writes to ask why in English the phrase fat chance actually means “little or no chance” — a slim chance, in other words. Fat chance is an ironic usage, much like the phrase big deal which is often used to mean...
If an operator operates, why doesn’t a surgeon surge? The word surgeon comes from ancient Greek cheir, which means “hand,” and ergon, “work,” surgery being a kind of medical treatment done by hand, rather than the work...
Paul in Dryden, New York, says when he lived in Tennessee, he knew that when someone began a sentence with Bless his heart, that phrase would usually be followed by the word but, plus a criticism of that person. Now that he’s living in New...
Danil, a ninth-grader in Traverse City, Michigan, says his class is curious about the term baby blue. This color name apparently has to do with the pale eye color of some newborn babies. A poem reprinted in newspapers across the United States in the...