Why Police Officers are Sometimes Called “Pigs” Unlike so many other nicknames for the police, such as cops and the fuzz, this particular term has a relatively well known origin. You see, starting around the sixteenth century “pig” began being used in English as a derogatory term for people, whether police or not, as it still sometimes is used today. […]

Kayla R. asks: Why are strikebreakers called scabs? Striving to win safer working conditions, shorter hours and better pay, over the past few hundred years laborers have periodically joined together in work stoppages, called strikes. Only effective when the work needed by the “boss” (be it a single business, a whole industry or an entire nation) doesn’t get done; if […]

Mark asks: I don’t know if you’ve already covered this or not, but why do we call quitting something abruptly “cold turkey”? When you quit something “cold turkey” it means that you’re quitting smoking, drinking, a hard drug, or eating delicious chocolate cake right then and there without being slowly weaned off the addictive (possibly chocolatey) substance. What with turkeys […]

The practice of saying “o’clock” is simply a remnant of simpler times when clocks weren’t very prevalent and people told time by a variety of means, depending on where they were and what references were available. Generally, of course, the Sun was used as a reference point, with solar time being slightly different than clock time. Clocks divide the time […]

Why “Hank” is Short for “Henry” This is thought to be thanks to the one time popular suffix “-kin,” which is also how “Jack” originally derived from the name “John.” Specifically, the suffix “-kin,” simply indicated “little,” so Robin Hood’s “Little John” would have been aptly named “Jockin,” which later gave rise to “Jenkin,” then “Jakin,” and then “Jack,” with […]

How fast you’re going while out floating on the big blue can be notoriously tricky to judge if you’re just eyeballing it. One method used to get around this issue was introduced in the sixteenth century using a “chip log” or “log-line.” In a nutshell, this method used a plank of wood (usually wedge shaped and weighted on one end […]

As with many etymologies, the exact root of this word is difficult to say with one hundred percent certainty. However, the leading theory is extremely plausible and backed up by a fair bit of documented evidence. Specifically, it is thought that a dollar is called a “buck” thanks to deer. One of the earliest references of this was in 1748, […]

Today I found out about the meaning of the word “gesundheit” and other sneeze etiquette around the world. You are probably accustomed to hearing or saying “bless you” after someone sneezes. It’s simple sneeze etiquette, at least in English speaking countries. In Germany, it’s polite to say “gesundheit” after someone sneezes, which more or less means “health.” More specifically, it’s […]

This is an excerpt from our new book: The Wise Book of Whys, available in: Print | Kindle | Nook | Audiobook The earliest documented reference to New York being referred to as “The Big Apple” comes from a 1909 book by Edward Martin, called The Wayfarer. In it, he uses the moniker in a metaphorical sense, rather than a […]

We owe this unit of engine power measurement to Scottish engineer James Watt. In the early 1780s, after making a vastly superior steam engine to the then classic Newcomen steam engine, Watt was looking for a way to market his invention, advertising the fact that his engine used about 75% less fuel than a similarly powered Newcomen, among many other […]