Pylimitics

And a one, and a two… There’s a small mystery about numbers that you may have noticed. When we count things, we use “one,” “two,” “three,” and so on. But when we talk about the position of something in a sequence, we say “first,” “second,, and “third;” different words altogether. After that, though, it’s back… Continue reading

Whether you’ve heard “Heard it Through the Grapevine” or not, you’ve probably heard of hearing through the grapevine, and you’ve probably heard things through the grapevine. But have you ever heard why you’d hear things through a grapevine in the first place?  “The grapevine”, as a metaphor for people passing information individually, one-by-one, dates back… Continue reading

Sometimes you’ll see a story about some person or group “barnstorming”, which means touring around an area — possibly the whole US — making brief stops for whatever their specialty happens to be. A band could hold a barnstorming concert tour; a political candidate could barnstorm around giving speeches, and so forth.  If you look… Continue reading

“She was in cahoots with a doctor.” That’s a line from “Murder Must Wait,” a 1953 detective novel. It’s a pretty typical line; I don’t know how many novels in the crime fiction genre include “…in cahoots with…” but I bet it’s in the hundreds, at least. Being “in cahoots” with somebody means partnering with them, with… Continue reading