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What ? Words: Freelance
Freelancing is a form of self-employment, where one hires out one’s services instead of being employed on a permanent basis. Many believe this term dates to the Middle Ages, referring to a knight...
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What ? Words: Think Outside the Box
The phrase think outside the box is an allusion to a well-known puzzle where one has to connect nine dots, arranged in a square grid, with four straight lines drawn continuously without pen leaving...
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What ? Words: Balls to the Wall
The phrase balls to the wall, meaning an all-out effort, comes from the world of aviation. On an airplane, the handles controlling the throttle and the fuel mixture are often topped with ball-shaped...
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What ? Words: Boondocks
The word boondocks is a relic of American colonialism. British English imported lots of words from its far-flung colonial possessions, and this word derives from the Tagalog (ethnic Filipino) word...
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What ? Words: Limelight
The term “limelight” today refers to any position of public attention. The word can be traced back to the 19th Century, when lighting fixtures that burned lime were used to illuminate theatrical...
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What ? Words: Read Between the Lines
To “read between the lines” is to discern a meaning which isn’t made obvious or explicit. This expression derives from a simple form of cryptography, apparently used for centuries, in which a hidden...
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What ? Words: The Whole Shebang
Meaning All of it; the whole thing. Origin This is an American phrase, from the 1920s. The first question for those of us not living in the USA, and I suspect quite a few that do, is, what’s a shebang?...
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What ? Words: Cat Got Your Tongue
Theory #1 The saying comes from the Middle East, where as punishment, liars had their tongues ripped out and fed to the king’s cats. Theory #2 Fear of a whipping with a cat-o’-nine-tails, or “cat” for...
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What ? Words: Break the Ice
To break the ice (1) to relax a tense or formal atmosphere or social situation; (2) to make a start on some endeavor. This came into general use, in sense (1), in English through Lord Byron’s “Don...
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What ? Words: Run Amok
Meaning To ‘run amok’, which is sometimes spelled ‘run amuck,’ is to behave in a wild or unruly manner. Origin ‘Run amok’ is now synonymous with the term ‘go crazy,’ but originally had a specific...
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