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- Origin of the phrase Now were cooking with
The original is "Now You're Cooking With Gas", supposedly part of an ad campaign from the era when gas stoves first started replacing wood stoves for cooking in the home The Wikitionary entry cooking with gas offers some insight, but I couldn't locate a specific ad campaign, or any other corroborating materials This article suggests that this would have been early in the 1900s
- word choice - What types of sounds do cars make? - English Language . . .
Modern cars aren't supposed to make much noise at all There's the comfort of travellers and the general public near the highway to consider, not to mention the fact that fuel economy implies aerodynamic body shape At most, what we're looking for is something like "muted hum"
- Origin of the phrase, Theres more than one way to skin a cat.
There are many versions of this proverb, which suggests there are always several ways to do something The earliest printed citation of this proverbial saying that I can find is in a short story by the American humorist Seba Smith - The Money Diggers, 1840: "There are more ways than one to skin a cat," so are there more ways than one of digging for money Charles Kingsley used one old British
- What is the origin of sucker and it sucks?
etymonline has for suck: O E sucan, from PIE root sug- suk- of imitative origin Meaning “do fellatio” is first recorded 1928 Slang sense of “be contemptible” first attested 1971 (the underlying notion is of fellatio) and sucker: “young mammal before it is weaned”, late 14c , agent noun from suck Slang meaning “person who is easily deceived” is first attested 1836, in
- meaning - What does the term 86d relate to? - English Language . . .
What does it mean when someone or something is referred to as being "86'd"?
- capitalization - Which words in a title should be capitalized . . .
Are there any concrete rules that say which words (parts of speech) in a title should start with a capital letter? What would be a correct capitalization for the title of this question?
- etymology - Origin of the wrong end of the stick - English Language . . .
Before toilet paper and Sears catalogs, there was a wooden spatula called the stick If you were in the outhouse after dark and you had to find the stick in the dark, you had a good chance of finding the wrong, dirty, shitty end of the stick Not everyone could afford candles or lanterns, and sometimes the wind would blow them out anyway
- How can something be fuller or the fullest?
Consider the definition for full (Source): full [foo l] adjective, fuller, fullest completely filled; containing all that can be held; filled to utmost capacity: a full cup complete; entire; m
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