Paste Eater
HA-ha! Dear Word Detective: When and how did the expression “paste-eaters” come into usage? That’s one of the funniest, but apt, expressions I’ve heard in a long time! — Eric D. Cohen. Funny and apt,...
View ArticleSic
Fetch with extreme prejudice? Dear Word Detective: I noticed how odd the word “siccing” looked in the newspaper and can’t help but wonder from where the verb “to sic,” as “to sic a dog on someone,”...
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The Word Detective Online has been a free online resource for fifteen years. More than half a million readers visit us every year, and more than 30,000 other sites, many of them universities and...
View ArticleCrook
The buck stops in their pockets. Dear Word Detective: I live in Cook County, IL, where a synonym for politician is “crook” in all too many instances. “Crook” apparently has a few meanings, but when...
View ArticleNumber, to do a
But it always adds up to a bad day. Dear Word Detective: Countless times I’ve heard the phrase “to do a number on” someone or something, meaning “to affect strongly, often negatively.” I wonder how...
View ArticleGull
Flying fools. Dear Word Detective: I am reading Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens and right now I am regretting not having sought out an annotated copy. The latest word to throw me is “gull,”...
View ArticleYokel
Not to mention the damp, tasteless pizza. Dear Word Detective: “Yokel,” meaning a country bumpkin, is pretty well known, but where does it come from? Perhaps from its rhyming with “local”? “Local...
View ArticleArms
Well, the Super’s name is Earl Duke. Dear Word Detective: Why are apartment buildings known as “arms”? — Jane Bellotti. That’s an interesting question, and although I first answered it more than a...
View ArticleUnkempt
Is your hair on purpose? Dear Word Detective: I heard a coworker talking about her husband, and she used the word “unkept.” I told her I thought the term she meant was “unkempt,” but she didn’t...
View ArticleMacaroni
The noodle knows. Dear Word Detective: I’m reading about the famous 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa, and it has repeated mentions of people referred to as “macaroni.” It brings to mind other references...
View ArticleWhole cloth / Fabrication
Cloak of deceit. Dear Word Detective: I was just reading an old column of yours on the phrase “made it up out of whole cloth” to mean “lying” and wondered, given the textile reference, if there is any...
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July 2010 Issue
Semper Ubi Sub Ubi readme: Well, this is very late, but there is an explanation. Harry In the first week of July our dear kitty Harry died suddenly. Harry would have been six this month, but he was the...
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