If you’re looking for an answer as to the origins of the phrase “by the skin of your teeth,” you won’t find it in an anatomy textbook. Instead, the answer lies in a different type of book: the Bible. We can trace the origins of this toothy phrase — defined by Merriam-Webster as “by a very narrow margin” — back to the 1500s.
One of the earliest English printings of this anatomically incorrect phrase — if not the earliest — can be found in the 1560 version of the Geneva Bible— a version that was popular among Protestants. More specifically, it’s found in Job 19:20 as a literal translation of the original Hebrew: “I haue escaped with the skinne of my tethe.” A 1599 version of the Geneva Bible reads, “I have escaped with the skin of my teeth,” demonstrating how the English language transitioned toward more modern spellings.
As common as the phrase has become, it’s not completely clear what the original intent was. Some theorize that the “skin” in question refers to gums, while others say it refers to the enamel coating on teeth. There are also Greek translations of the original Hebrew that imply it refers to the lips. But metaphorically, the biblical phrase is usually interpreted to suggest that Job barely escaped his trials and tribulations, which is similar to how we use the phrase today.
Because the Geneva Bible was used by so many prominent English speakers (including William Shakespeare), the phrase soon entered the collective lexicon. Copies of the Geneva Bible were brought to the Americas aboard the Mayflower, which may have contributed to how this phrase became so common in both British and American English.
Featured image credit: Liudmila Chernetska/ iStock
Ever wonder why we say “unwell” but not “inwell”? Or why it’s “insufficient” instead of “unsufficent”? Sometimes, to make sense of English, you have to go back to your roots.
The English language is like a city built on ancient ruins. Layer upon layer, new words rise, but root languages, habits, and rules remain beneath the surface. This is how two prefixes ended up competing for the same job. Both “un-” and “in-” flip a word’s meaning by turning it into its opposite or expressing a lack of it. The determination of which one gets the job mostly depends on the word’s ancient roots.
“Un-” — the most prolific prefix in the English language — was passed down from Old English and ultimately derived from Proto-Germanic. Meaning “not” or “the opposite of,” it typically attaches to Germanic roots, which are common in everyday English. Notably, “un-” is not used with nouns. Consider the example of “unlucky” vs. “unluck” — the former is an acceptable adjective, but when “un-” is attached to a noun, it doesn’t work. There are sophisticated rules of morpheme structure at play here for linguists to understand, but it’s enough for a layperson to know that “undrawer” and “uncoffee” don’t sound right.
“In-,” on the other hand, came into English through Latin. It conveys the same negative meaning as “un-” but often sticks with Latinate words, such as “inadequate” or “inapplicable” — words that are more commonly found in academic and professional settings. There are a few Latin-root nouns that have an “in-” prefix (e.g., “injustice” and “inability”), but modern English is not creating new words with “in-” and a noun.
Occasionally, both prefixes can be used with the same root, but they create different meanings. For instance, “insecure” and “unsecure” have distinct definitions. “Insecure” describes a lack of confidence (“He was insecure about his new glasses”), while “unsecure” means “not secure” (“The WiFi network is unsecure”). It’s a rarer case where “un-“appears with a Latin-rooted word, but it happens.
Unfortunately, there’s no secret formula for choosing the correct prefix. But with a bit of detective work in the dictionary, or just an educated guess (does this word sound more Germanic or Latinate?), you might be able to suss out a new-to-you word. Other times — as with so much in English — it simply boils down to memorization.
When you’re meeting someone for the first time, exchanging general pleasantries might not reveal where they’re from. But if you start talking to them in depth, certain words and phrases might come up that suddenly draw attention to their accent. The moment you hear a certain regionalism, it’s pretty easy to make a guess about where that person learned to speak.
Let’s discuss American English speakers, and some of the words and phrases that draw attention to U.S. regional dialects. These examples of regionalisms and the accents that accompany them will help you pinpoint the part of the country a person comes from.
“Pahk the Cah in Hahvahd Yahd”
Few phrases scream out a distinctive regional accent more strongly than “pahk the cah in Hahvahd Yahd” (“park the car in Harvard Yard”). These six words have been used since at least 1946 as part of a so-called “Famous Harvard Accent Test,” according to linguist Ben Zimmer.
While the phrase is usually associated with a general Boston accent, it was once used to determine if someone had a Harvard accent specifically — one that emerged from the various accents spoken at Harvard University, including those of New England prep schoolers, Boston Irish Americans, Midwesterners, and anyone else attending Harvard in search of higher education. But the Harvard and Boston accents are quite similar, as they both drop the “r” sound and replace it with more of an “ah” sound at every available opportunity.
“Jeet Jet?”
“Jeet jet?” is a common phrase heard in Pittsburgh-ese; it means “Did you eat yet?” You’re likely to hear the phrase “jeet jet?” before taking a trip “dahntahn” (“downtown”) to get some pierogies, or going to grab a french fry-filled sandwich at Primanti Bros. Those who grew up in the Steel City are known for blending their words together, such as by replacing “and that” with “n’at.”
A lot of the Pittsburgh-ese words still used today originated in the late 1800s and early 1900s among Scotch Irish immigrants and non-native English speakers. These working-class individuals learned English by conversing through informal conversations on the street, rather than relying on formal textbooks in the classroom.
Advertisement
“You Betcha”
While you may hear it across the Midwest, the phrase “you betcha” is most closely associated with Minnesota and the Dakotas. The affirmative phrase is a way of saying “absolutely,” and you can hope it comes with a classic hot dish casserole topped with tater tots.
Minnesotans tend to speak with strong “o’s” and flat “a’s” — a regional accent that was influenced by early Scandinavian and Irish immigrants. In an interview on a Minnesota morning show, dialect coach Keely Wolter said one unique aspect of the accent is that Minnesotans make their “o” sounds into a monophthong, meaning there’s just one sound (“ooo”). Compare this to most other American accents, where “o” is a diphthong with two distinct sounds (e.g., “ah-oo” of “now” or “uh-oh” of “go”).
“Cawfee”
Whether you’re a lifelong resident of Manhattan or someone who resides in Long Island, you may pronounce “coffee” with an elongated “aw” sound, resulting in the word “caw-fee.” Other examples of this linguistic quirk include saying “chocolate” as “chaw-clet” and “New Yorker” as “New Yaw-ka”.
Another notable element of the New York accent is emphasizing a middle “g” sound — “Lawn Guyland” instead of “Long Island.” Locals might also drop the “r” sound, just like Bostonians. Just don’t tell that to any Yankees or Red Sox fans — bitter rivals who insist they’re nothing alike.
Hawaii Creole, often called “Pidgin,” emerged on 19th-century plantations. (A creole is “a language that has evolved from a pidgin but serves as the native language of a speech community,” another one of which is the American Louisiana Creole dialect, and a pidgin is “a form of speech that usually has a simplified grammar and a limited often mixed vocabulary and is used principally for intergroup communication.”) One of the most popular phrases to come out of Hawaii Creole is “da kine” — a regionalism likely derived from “that kind.” People in Hawaii tend to use the phrase “da kine” similarly to how Philadelphians use “jawn,” as it can be substituted for nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and pretty much any other word under the Hawaiian sun.
If someone were to say “da kine broke da mouth,” they’re almost certainly talking about a delicious meal they just ate. In this context, “broke da mouth” refers to the food being so good, it was overwhelming to eat, thus metaphorically breaking the mouth.
Sometimes etymology (tracing the development of words) involves a clear path from an ancient root word to a modern-day usage. Other times, it’s much harder to track down where names for things come from because much of linguistic history is oral and wasn’t preserved on paper over the centuries. This very difficulty has allowed theories and myths to perpetuate. Such is the case with the origin of the piggy bank. It might not seem consequential, but it’s an interesting study in how a linguistic myth spreads as fact.
The oft-repeated origin story goes like this: During medieval times, people stored their coins in jars made from an orange-colored clay called “pygg,” which at the time was used to make all manner of pottery. Whimsical potters then began making clay money jars in the shape of pigs, as a nod to the name of the clay. The practice caught on, “pygg” became “pig,” and soon pig-shaped containers were a common item, first known as “pig banks” and later “piggy banks.” The story sounds reasonable, but it’s likely no more than fiction.
According to the British etymologist Michael Quinion on his website “World Wide Words,” the story first appeared in a 1965 book called How Did It Begin? by Dr. Rudolph Brasch and was then repeated in the 1989 book Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things by Charles Panati. Neither author provides any sources for the claim, but readers seem to have taken it at face value, and the “pygg” origin story became commonplace — and now proliferates online.
But Quinion isn’t buying it: “The story is false in every particular,” he writes. “There is no record of a clay called ‘pygg,’ whether orange or any other colour. The term ‘pygg bank’ is not on record and ‘piggy bank’ is only a century old.” That last part is important to consider when trying to find the real origin story. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first written usage of “piggy bank” dates back to 1913 — a long time after medieval potters supposedly began making pig-shaped coin receptacles. But “pig” in relation to money boxes is much older, and it takes us to Scotland. In the 15th century, the Scots called their money banks “pirly pigs,” with “pig” being a general Scottish term for earthenware products such as pots, pitchers, jars, and crockery, and “pyrl” a Scots term for “thrust or poke,” as one might insert a coin into a money box. This may provide some background to the unsupported claims in the aforementioned books, but not enough to make the myth hold true.
Perhaps a more compelling explanation for piggy banks can be found in Germanic cultural traditions. One of the oldest known piggy banks in Europe, dating from the 13th century, was found in what is now Thuringia, a state in east-central Germany. The Germanic people considered pigs to be symbols of fertility and prosperity, and money boxes shaped like pigs would have made sense. The Sparschwein — literally “savings pig” — is still a popular tradition in Germany. Centuries ago, pig-shaped banks may have spread from Germany to wider Europe, and it’s possible that German immigrants later introduced piggy banks to the United States.
Going even further back — and further afield — we also find piggy banks on the island of Java in the 12th century. Known as cèlèngan, these earthenware piggy banks were not uncommon in the Malay world during the Majapahit period — and they look surprisingly similar to the piggy banks we know today. It’s not impossible that someone brought these piggy banks to Europe, inspiring a wider trend — but we’ll likely never have concrete proof of that.
One thing we do know with certainty: There is no such thing as clay called “pygg,” and it did not inspire the name of the piggy bank.
Why is the English horn neither English nor a horn? And what does the violin have to do with joyful chanting? The names of orchestral instruments tell a fascinating story of language evolution.
The sections of a symphony orchestra are aptly named: strings, woodwinds, brass, and percussion (although woodwinds include the flute, now made of metal). But the names of the instruments themselves are more surprising in origin. Why is “clarinet” based on a word for the trumpet, and why is the English horn, which is neither English nor a horn, so named?
Strings
The Latin vitulari meant “to chant joyfully,” and vitula was the word for a stringed instrument, such as a lyre. Vitula and vitulari evolved into the Italian viuola and violino — the English “viola” and “violin.” “Cello” is a shortening of the Italian violoncello, a diminutive of violone, an older Italian name for the string bass.
Woodwinds
The French hautbois, literally “high wood,” is the origin of “oboe.” Think of haute cuisine and a haughty person who is high in their own estimation. “Clarinet” is a diminutive of the Italian clarino, which means “trumpet.” This instrument swap happened because historically, trumpets sounded like clarinets in their upper register. “Bassoon” is from the Italian bassone, coming into English via the French basson. “Flute” is of uncertain origin, but it possibly comes from the Latin flatus, meaning “breath, wind,” and “piccolo” is a shortening of the Italian flauto piccolo, meaning “small flute.”
The English horn, meanwhile, is neither English nor a horn (which would be in the brass family). Its name is from a misreading of the French anglé (“angled”) as Anglais (“English”), or possibly the Middle High German engellisch, “angelic.” This latter interpretation is plausible because the predecessor to the English horn, the oboe da caccia, had a curved shape and flared bell, similar to the horns angels were depicted blowing in religious illustrations from the Middle Ages. This also gives us the origin of the “horn” part of the name. The modern English horn is straight with a distinctive bent crook to hold the double reed, making it an angled woodwind instrument.
Brass
“Trumpet” is from the Old French trompette and trompe, which were likely imitative words, meaning the sound of the horn inspired the words. “French horn” also has a French connection; it’s ultimately from the type of hunting horn used in France. “Trombone” is from the Italian tromba, a large trumpet, and “tuba” is from the Latin tuba, a straight bronze war trumpet.
“Timpani” (also known as a kettledrum) is from the Latin tympanum, meaning “drum”; “cymbals” are from the Greek “kumbē,” which means “cup.” “Tambourine” is a diminutive, from the Old French tabour, meaning “drum.” “Xylophone” is based on the Greek xylon, meaning “wood.” (Xylem is the woody part of a plant.) “Snare drum” is from the Old English snear, which is a string or cord that produces a rattling vibration. “Gong” is imitative, and “triangle” is self-evident if you’ve seen anyone play it.
Put them all together, and you have a symphony orchestra. “Symphony” is from the Greek symphonia, meaning “harmony of sounds,” and “orchestra,” somewhat confusingly, is from the Greek orkhēstra, the semicircular space where the chorus of dancers performed in front of the stage. Not until the 18th century did “orchestra” refer to a group of musicians performing at a concert or opera.
What’s the Least Commonly Used Letter in the Alphabet?
Of the 26 letters in the English alphabet, which one do you think is used the least? Let’s explore how the experts — including statisticians and Scrabble enthusiasts — have tried to answer this question.
With over a million English words, all of the letters in the alphabet get plenty of use. But some letters will be played first in Wordle and called out on Wheel of Fortune, while other letters are known to be uncommon. But which is the least commonly used of all? The answer can vary based on the criteria. Are we counting all dictionary entries in history or only those currently in use? Are we focusing on written or spoken language? These questions and more influence the outcome, but let’s turn to the experts to get some answers.
In an analysis of the approximately 240,000 entries in the 11th edition of theConcise Oxford English Dictionary, the letter “Q” was the least used, appearing in only 0.1962% of entries. The second-least-used letter was “J,” followed by “Z,” “X,” and “V,” in that order. On the other end of the spectrum, “E” was the most common letter, showing up in over 11% of entries. Still, this doesn’t necessarily mean “Q” is the least used in everyday English — especially considering the average American knows only about 42,000 words.
This brings us to a more practical (if nonacademic) source: Scrabble. The board game revolves around using letter tiles to strategically spell words on the board. Each letter is worth a certain point value, supposedly based on their rarity in English words. Any avid Scrabble player knows that “Q” and “Z” are worth 10 points — the highest value in the game. This would suggest that “Q” and “Z” are the least-used letters in English, right? Maybe. But Scrabble creator Alfred Butts was hardly scientific in his approach to the point system. When crafting the game in 1938, he calculated a value for each letter by counting how many times it appeared on the front page of The New York Times. However, many critics have contested Butts’ haphazard approach.
To challenge this outdated system, Scrabble enthusiast Joshua Lewis developed a program called “Valett,” which recalculates the letter values based on three criteria: their frequency in English, their frequency by word length (how many times a letter appears in words of different lengths), and how easy it is to play that letter with other letters. Based on Lewis’ findings, several letters would lose value — “Z,” for example, would be worth only six points, suggesting that it isn’t as rare as it seems. However, Lewis kept “Q” as the highest-scoring letter. He even suggested increasing its score to 12 because of its extreme rarity.
So, there you have it: According to statistics and Scrabble aficionados, “Q” may indeed be the least commonly used letter in the English alphabet.
If you find yourself writing a song or in a freestyle competition, it’s best to avoid these rhymeless words. There are plenty of English words that lack a perfect rhyming companion.
There are a couple of English words that don’t have any rhymes; they may be few and far between but do pop up sometimes. These rhymeless words may make it tough to write a really good song, ’cause if you try to rhyme them it’ll end up sounding wrong. So if you’d like to learn some more and see a proper sample, here are several rhymeless words that are a great example.
(See what we did there?)
Let’s begin with the word “orange” — orange you glad we started with an example that you’ve probably heard before? Whether the word applies to the fruit or the color (fun fact: the fruit is named after the color), there’s no true rhyme for the word “orange” in the standard English lexicon. There is, however, a very specific and archaic botanical term, “sporange,” meaning “a botanical structure in which asexual spores are formed.” The more modern name for this is “sporangium.” But outside of that weird, historical case, there are no exact rhymes for “orange.” There are, however, some slant rhymes you can consider — slant rhymes being words that share similar, but not identical sounds. Try out“change,” “grunge,” or “tinge” if you must use “orange” in verse.
Continuing this colorful trend, let’s move on to two other rhymeless hues: “silver” and “purple.” While words like “river” or “shiver” may sort of sound like “silver,” they’re slant rhymes at best. The same goes for “purple,” whose closest rhyme is likely “whirlpool.”
But it’s not just colors that dominate the rhymeless spectrum. For instance, the phrase “ninth of the month” is a headache for lyricists, as both “ninth” and “month” lack any sort of proper English rhyme. The animal kingdom is also full of words without rhyming pairs, such as “walrus,” “wolf,” and “penguin.”
The list goes on and on — “angel,” “bulb,” “woman,” “husband,” and “warmth” also fall into the rhymeless category. While preschoolers singing nursery rhymes and skilled rappers make it seem easy, it turns out the English lexicon is full of rhymeless words just waiting to trip us up.
Listening to younger generations speak can feel like trying to decode an alien language. Let’s help clear things up by explaining some popular modern idioms.
Just like clothing fads, certain expressions go out of style. For example, it’s probably been a while (if ever) since you heard someone exclaim, “Now you’re on the trolley!” or threaten a person with a “knuckle sandwich.” But as idioms come and go, other ones appear to fill the void. Brand-new phrases are coined by each generation, leading to an array of fresh figurative speech.
An idiom, of course, is a symbolic phrase that can be hard to understand from the literal definitions of the words. For example, when telling a performer to “break a leg,” you’re not actually hoping they shatter a femur. The phrase is more figurative in nature; its meaning is defined not by the dictionary, but rather by how the wording is used and understood in society. So let’s take a closer look at the origins and meanings of some popular modern idioms.
Spill the Tea
While tipping over a teapot may result in a messy situation, “spilling the tea” means that someone is dishing out gossip. The “tea” is actually “T,” which is short for “truth” in this context. The phrase developed widespread use in LGBTQ+ culture, specifically among Black drag performers. It gained widespread attention when
transgender club performer The Lady Chablis used the phrase prominently in her interviews with writer John Berendt, the context of which appeared in Berendt’s 1994 nonfiction book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. “Spill the tea” remained primarily LGBTQ+ slang until the popularity of the reality TV show RuPaul’s Drag Race pushed this idiom and other drag-related terminology into the collective lexicon.
Advertisement
Understood the Assignment
In 2021, it was impossible to browse TikTok without hearing the phrase “understood the assignment.” This idiom means that someone pulled things off in an impeccable manner and nailed whatever goal they were aiming for. The tipping point for this phrase seems to be August 16, 2021, when musician Tay Money posted a teaser of a new song, “The Assignment,” to her TikTok, and the viral reach spread the idiom far beyond the song’s initial fan base. The idiom can apply to big things, such as a celebrity matching an elaborate outfit to an important event, but it can also apply to everyday people showing up in their lives in meaningful ways. A dad who learns how to braid his daughter’s hair because it’s important to her? He understood the assignment.
Living Rent-Free in Your Head
Sadly, rent is never free, unless we’re talking about this figurative phrase. To “live rent-free in someone’s head” means to occupy space in their brain, often in a detrimental manner. For example, if you find yourself always thinking about how annoying someone else is, that person is living rent-free in your head. The “rent-free” aspect implies a lack of control, and you’ll often find that this constant worrying has no positive impact on your life. It seems like an ultramodern phrase, but it’s attributed to a somewhat old-school source: advice columnist Eppie Lederer, who wrote under the alias Ann Landers. In a 1999 column for the Chicago Tribune, Landers wrote, “Hanging onto resentment is letting someone you despise live rent-free in your head.”
Advertisement
Shooting Your Shot
To “shoot your shot” means to try to seize an opportunity, even if the odds of success are slim. It often requires stepping out of your comfort zone. Someone might shoot their shot when asking someone on a date, or blindly emailing their resume to a company in hopes of landing a job offer. Even though this idiom’s origins are unclear, it’s likely derived from the world of sports, specifically the idea of shooting basketballs at the net. It also could be related to the famous quote by hockey legend Wayne Gretzky: “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”
The phrase “keep it 100,” could be taken as a literal command. Should you turn the thermostat up to 100 degrees? Or strive for a perfect 100 on a test? This idiom is a way of saying, “be true to yourself,” and is explained by Dictionary.comas being akin to “keeping it real.” To “keep it 100” means to be 100% authentic and to embrace transparency over deception. The idiom’s modern popularity is tied to rap music, as many popular lyricists, including Lil Wayne and Jadakiss, have incorporated the phrase into their songs.
The English language comprises thousands and thousands of words (more than 150,000 in the Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary). But as language evolves and new vocabulary (including slang) is coined, older words that have fallen out of favor are continually revised, retired, and, sometimes, removed from dictionaries.
Dictionaries tend to fall into one of two camps: descriptivist or prescriptionist. The latter means that explicit rules are given as to how language, grammar, and words operate. However, most modern lexicographers are descriptivist, which means they record how language is used by people. As such, sometimes words drop out of the lexicon.
Compendiums such as the Oxford English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary are more likely to mark the usage of a word as “archaic,” “historical,” or “obsolete,” than to remove a word from their corpus (the word for all the words in a dictionary). But smaller or more specialized dictionaries can be more particular. A printed dictionary must be edited, and words that have fallen out of use over time are likely to be dropped from a newer edition. Even online, a specialized dictionary will be limited.
We’re not the arbiters for culling any words from the dictionary, but here are a few words that we think are out-of-fashion enough that they could be up for elimination.
Aerodrome
This British English term refers to a landing field for airplanes and related structures (e.g., hangars). The word “airport” has since replaced it.
Advertisement
Alienism
This is an obsolete term for psychiatry, the study and treatment of mental illnesses. It’s a fair assumption this term was phased out due to the offensive connotation of connecting the word “alien” to people with mental illnesses.
Brabble
“Brabble” is a synonym for “squabble,” “quarrel,” “argue,” or “fight.” This term has fallen out of fashion, and there are so many other available words, so it seems ripe for retirement.
Charabanc
This word belongs in historical fiction. The term was borrowed from French, where it meant “wagon with benches,” for a Victorian-era sightseeing vehicle, but it’s long obsolete.
Deliciate
Check again. The spelling is not “delicate.” “Deliciate” means “to amuse or please oneself by indulging in revels.” However, it does trace back to the Latin word delicatus, which means “delicate.” With this confusing etymology, it’s good that this word dropped out of common use.
Advertisement
Frigorific
This adjective was used to describe something that causes cold or is chilling. Today we still have “frigid,” but the older cousin is no longer commonly used.
It sounds like an advanced form of interrogation, but “supererogation” means “going above and beyond what is required by duty, obligation, or need.” Its roots lie in Medieval Latin, and it was primarily used in religious contexts. We think “going above and beyond” says enough in today’s language.
Younker
The original definition of this word is “a young man or a child.” There’s also a former department store founded in 1856 by the name of “Younkers.” There isn’t much need for this one in the dictionary anymore.
Is the phrase “scot-free” a call for independence? Or was a man named Scot wrongly imprisoned? Well, neither. The phrase actually has to do with one of life’s inevitabilities: taxes.
For the kid who snuck some extra cookies and the dog who just chewed up the couch cushions, there are grand hopes of getting off scot-free. This expression relates to doing something bad without suffering any consequences. But despite the spelling of “scot,” the phrase didn’t originate in Scotland — it comes from a term used a few hundred miles away in Scandinavia.
The phrase “scot-free” is rooted in the Old Norse language, which was spoken across Scandinavia from roughly the ninth to 13th centuries. Around the 10th century, the word skot, meaning “payment,” made its way over to the British Isles, where it was anglicized as scot. There, it was used for a royal tax levied on locals. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, this gave rise to the Old English term scotfreo, meaning “tax free.”
As Old English evolved into Middle and then Modern English, the term developed a new spelling and meaning. The Oxford English Dictionary points to several spellings from the 16th century where it was written as “scott fre” and “scotchfree” (still no relation to Scotland). The phrase came to mean “getting away with anything,” whether it be avoiding one’s taxes or getting away with a crime. One of the earliest figurative uses appears in a 1567 natural history book titled A Greene Forest by John Maplet: “Daniell scaped scotchfree by Gods prouidence.”
Today, people rarely use “scot-free” with regard to avoiding one’s taxes, though it could certainly still apply in the right circumstances. (By the way, if the IRS is reading this, just know that I would never try to get off scot-free.) In most instances, the phrase has shed its original meaning and is now almost always used in the sense of getting away with criminal or wrongful activity without punishment.
Enter your email to receive daily lessons that dive into what makes English so fascinating. Each email is packed with odd rules, etymologies, and the tools you need to be a better communicator.
Sorry, your email address is not valid. Please try again.
Sorry, your email address is not valid. Please try again.
