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April 11th, 2012 by admin

 

Wondering about a weird (or favorite) word or phrase–where it came from, or what it really means? Send your questions to:

questions[at]word-detective[dot]com

and they may be answered in a future column!

(Please check first to be certain that the answer to your question is not in our extensive archives. Questions already answered will usually not be answered again.)

Thanks,

Kathy Wollard

 

All questions submitted become the property of the Vast Word Detective Global Empire, Ltd.  Which is another way of saying that the question and answer may also appear in a future Word Detective book.

 

Posted in | 3 comments

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  1. yvette jurado:

    January 24th, 2015 at 9:59 pm

    I’m a server. For years the term ” in the weeds ” has been used in this field of work. It means that your so busy its hard to catch up. I’m so busy I’m in the weeds.

  2. Mike:

    November 3rd, 2016 at 1:53 am

    And here I always thought cool beans was in reference to Jack and the Beanstalk. Had no idea it was such a complicated phrase.

  3. Joanne Flanagan:

    April 15th, 2019 at 10:05 am

    Husband and I were discussing the word STUB, for stubbed my toe, so wanted to make the comment that the only other thing I could think of was that after amputations, one has a STUB. So of course means the same thing as a what is left over after sharpening a pencil to the end, but every new definition article that came up said the same thing with pencil or object after having been shortened, I just wanted to say as far as stubbing your toe or whacking hitting bonking a knee elbow or shin is described, amputating a bodily limb leaving a stub may in some way correlate easier to some????
    Apologies for probably not relaying comment in correct place however I am legally blind and not very computer literate and got displaced to areas that would not allow me to comment so when finally showed this box, I did right here. Thank You for reading