You have to love how slang evolves. In my day, insulting someone was dissing someone from the word disrespect. Now it is throwing shade, especially when it is subtle. A person who does it is shady. A new has also come on the scene to describe someone or something out of date or old-fashioned cheugy. A confused tiktoker mentioned it, which inspired ( Read more... )

I'm drawing a blank at conniver, contraband getter, and other terms. Thanks for any aid.

** FIXER is the most likely term **

Source is a 1934 film, Mandalay, starring Kay Francis. Her character, Tanya, is abandoned by her lover as they cruise the Far East in his yacht. She takes up the only work she can find, "hostessing" in a Rangoon "nightclub" until she gathers enough funds to escape that life. "Spot White is her name?" asks a patron as she makes a glamorous ( Read more... )

My siblings and I are compiling odd things that our grandparents and parents said. Three of Gran's ([1900-1986], mother immigrated 1890 from Devon, England, father born and raised in Nebraska; she enjoyed Nebraska small town upbringing until 1936, when relocated to northern California forever) sayings baffle us. Would anyone else have heard of ( Read more... )

Spinning a windy to mean telling a tall tale. "Aw, don't take me seriously, I was just spinning a windy." Has anyone else heard this? Searching did not turn up a source. (Native Californian here.)

Hello peeps, I hope you can help me with a little thing... it's for a fantasy thriller I'm currently working on, set in modern day (post-2010), where a woman 'sins' enough to unleash the verbal wrath of a certain type of spirits (not ghosts in traditional sense) that knows the truth of humans' personalities and their life stories. Their purpose is ( Read more... )

( To me, it's a mildly obscene phrase. )

A friend who is trying to learn English through Duolingo surprised me today by mentioning that "mouse" has a colloquial meaning I never heard before - a black-eye ( Read more... )

I'd like to ask native English speakers (especially Americans from East Coast ( Read more... )

I'm sorry, I know I sound like some crusty old reactionary here. It's just that this is something that for some reason I find particularly irritating, and I wondered how others feel about it. I generally find things easier to accept if I understand the reasoning behind them, so my question is ( Read more... )