If someone is asked a question about an area they know nothing about, they might reply that it’s “not in their bailiwick”. Nowadays, at least, it also carries the connotation that “it’s not my job”. For some reason, there doesn’t seem to be a corresponding phrase “yes, that’s right in my bailiwick” — maybe this… Continue reading

It’s obvious to everyone in Western culture what forks and spoons are. There is also a combination implement that’s sort of a “serrated” spoon. It’s nowhere near as recent an invention as most people think, nor is it entirely settled that it should be called a “spork,” which is the most popular term for it.… Continue reading

If you hear someone complain that they were “sold a bill of goods,” what they mean is they were conned or swindled. The phrase doesn’t really make a lot of sense on its face; the literal meaning of a bill of goods is simply that it’s a list of items — not even necessarily involved… Continue reading

The moon has phases, a big construction project can have phases, you might phase in a new lesson plan in school or a new budgeting system in a business, and while that might leave some practitioners unphased, others, disturbed by the changes, would be more correctly described as “fazed.” “Phase” has a long history, and… Continue reading

The English language gained a number of odd words in the 1960s. One of them is groovy. Er, that is, one of them is “groovy,” which may or may not be groovy. “Groovy” means cool, apt, pleasing, current, and generally desirable, and if you actually use the term today it evokes people wearing bell-bottom jeans,… Continue reading

In 1837 in London, a case came before the court and the following testimony was recorded: “The complainant said that on Saturday morning he was at the plying place at the Tower stairs, when Crouch began to abuse him, and swore he would “cook his goose,” by which he meant he would ruin him, or… Continue reading

For some reason, English has tended to borrow words related to death from French. Not directly related to somebody dying, for the most part. Just some possibly unexpected connection to death in general.   The most common example is of course “mortgage,” which is borrowed from French where it means “dead” (mort) “pledge” (gage). Sometimes… Continue reading

“I cannot tell what the dickens his name is,” reads a line in Shakespeare’s “Merry Wives of Windsor.” A century later, in 1728, the somewhat less-well-known writer Colley Cibber wrote “The provok’d husband; or, A journey to London,” and included the same exclamation: “The dickens! has this Rogue of a Count play’d us another Trick then?” Another century passed,… Continue reading