Domenic V. asks: Is it true that the snozzberries in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory were dicks? Given the dark undercurrent of Roald Dahl’s works, perhaps it wouldn’t be surprising if his famous snozzberries mentioned in the book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964) made into the film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971), were, in fact, penises. […]
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Kerry U. asks: When words fall out of usage are they removed from the dictionary? The Second Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary is generally regarded as the single most comprehensive record of the English language to exist. Included in this work are many thousands of words considered completely “obsolete” by lexicographers. You see, in something of a Hotel California […]
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Michael W. asks: Why is splitting the tab and paying for yourself called Dutch? The idea of paying for yourself when out with friends being referred to as some expression including the word “Dutch,” seemingly incorrectly is often connected to the fact that for several centuries beginning in the 17th, the word Dutch had a negative connotation in English, variously […]
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On a particularly blustery February South Side day, it is easy to understand why the city of Chicago has the nickname of the “Windy City.” After all, it has one of the roughest winters of all major American cities and it does get pretty regular gusts. But, in truth, it actually isn’t all that windy, relatively speaking; in terms of […]
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Shih C. asks: Why are McGuffin’s in films called that? In the last scene of the 1941 film classic, The Maltese Falcon, Sam Spade (played by Humphrey Bogart) hands over a murderer (played by Mary Astor) and a black falcon statuette to authorities. When asked what the statuette was exactly, Spade looks off in the distance and rather unsatisfactorily explains, […]
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Travis P. asks: Is it true that Eskimos have dozens of words for snow? It’s impossible to say precisely how many words for snow certain native peoples of the far north have. Why? To begin with, we are talking about a group of related languages, not just one, and even within these languages there are variations from specific region to […]
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Becky G. asks: Why are cowardly people called “yellow bellied”? The color of warning signals, smiley faces, rubber duckies and the Sun (at least from our perspective- in fact the Sun is white if viewed from space), for many of us yellow has a favorable connotation; yet, at various points throughout human history, yellow has decidedly been a symbolism of, […]
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Kevin A. asks: Why are significant days called red letter days? While it’s commonly stated that the practice of marking important dates in red didn’t begin until the Middle Ages, in fact, in ancient Rome red ink was sometimes used on calendars to identify significant dates, as well as occasionally used on important text in documents, with the underlying reason […]
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Olivia B. asks: Where did the word dunce come from and who came up with the dunce cap? The word dunce derives from the name of an extremely accomplished religious scholar- John Duns Scotus (1265/66-1308), an influential philosopher and theologian of the High Middle Ages. If you guessed that his ideas and those who touted them were (somewhat unfairly) eventually […]
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Marcus J. asks: Why are bowie knives named that? James Bowie is a man today known primarily for two things- his participation in the Battle of the Alamo and a large knife design that bears his name. It’s impossible to separate fact from legend concerning an amazing amount of this American folk hero’s life, owing to Bowie leaving exceptionally little […]
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Jeremiah C. asks: Did people actually used to eat their hats? If not, where did the expression come from? “I’ll eat my hat” is an utterance commonly used when a person is absolutely certain that something will not happen. But where did this unusual phrase first originate and have there ever been any recorded instances of people actually eating their […]
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David N. asks: Who was the Jerry in the expression Jerry-rigged? Although many describe shoddy workmanship or a hasty, temporary repair as jerry-rigged, in its original incarnation, the term was actually jury-rigged. While jury as a noun meaning a group of peers that decide the outcome of a legal proceeding has been in use English since the early 14th century, […]
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The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Hey, youz! Whah do ‘mericuns have all differnt aks-ay-ents? It’s, like, totally confusing and somewhat bizzahh, dontcha know. TALK THIS WAY An accent is “a manner of pronunciation peculiar to a particular individual, location, or nation.” That’s not to be confused with a dialect, which is a specific form of […]
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Karl M. asks: Why is it called blackmail when you threaten to reveal something about someone if they don’t give you money? “Blackmail” has its roots in the early 16th century, first used by English farmers living on the England/Scotland border. It derives from the Middle English word “male” which itself is thought to derive from the Old English word […]
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Eric J. asks: I know it’s an old joke, but seriously, why do we drive on parkways but park on our driveways? There has to be a good reason we say it this way, right? To most people the fact that we drive on parkways and park on driveways is rarely pondered upon. This only comes to mind when pointed […]
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Alex M. asks: Is it the s or the c that’s silent in the word scent and why does it have both letters? Without a doubt, the C is silent in scent. And the reason the C is present at all can be attributed to a few scholars’ compulsive need for orderliness. Like many English words, scent was borrowed from […]
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Mark Y. asks: Why were people who made alcohol during prohibition called bootleggers? Although Prohibition officially began on January 16, 1920, the impetus for banning the production, sale, importation and transportation (though not the consumption) of alcohol had been brewing for decades before. Part of a string of reforms introduced by Progressives, Protestants and other activists to cure all of […]
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Jared M. asks: Why are breasts called boobs? There’s an oft repeated and decidedly untrue claim that Eskimos have hundreds of words for “snow”. (Beyond the fact that there is no single “Eskimo language”, when talking about the wider Eskimo-Aleut language family, these actually have roughly the same number of root-words for snow as English.) The false claim that they […]
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