John in Williamsburg, Virginia, ponders whether English is the linguistic equivalent of the Borg, dominating and consuming all languages its path. There’s nothing inherent in English that makes it superior to or more likely to win out over...
Thomas in Bahama, North Carolina, says his father used to say “You can’t hang around the barbershop and not get your haircut,” which seems to be a warning about being influenced by the company you keep. Similar ideas are expressed...
The word jackpot can denote the pile of money you win at a game of poker, but another definition is that of trouble, tangled mess, or a literal logjam. This is part of a complete episode.
The saying “close but no cigar” comes from the famous carnival game wherein a bold fellow tries to swing a sledgehammer hard enough to make a bell ring. The winner of the game, which was popular around 1900, would win a cigar. The game...
The saying, “I ain’t lost nothin’ over there” is a dismissive way to say “Why in the world would I bother going to that place?” A similar version “you ain’t lost nothin’ down there,”...
Chances are you’re not familiar with most of the books that win the Nobel Prize in literature because most of them aren’t translated into English. Fortunately, Words Without Borders is doing something about that. This is part of a complete...