Cut to the Chase - 27 Dec. 2010

<p>[This episode first aired December 19, 2008.]<br /><br />There's nothing like an oddly phrased headline to brighten your day. How about "Actor Sent to Jail for Not Finishing Sentence"? Or "Queen Mary Having Bottom Scraped"? Same for signs that make you do a double take, like "Senior Citizens! Buy One, Get One Free." A San Diego caller shares a couple of her favorite oddly worded signs, and the hosts mention a few of their own.<br /><br />If someone's driving you bonkers, you'd be forgiven for grumbling, "He's such a pill!" But why a pill?<br /><br />Did Grandpa ever enthuse about Grandma's cooking with the words "Good stuff, Maynard!" A Waukesha, Wisconsin caller remembers his own grandfather doing that, and wants to know how this expression came about. <br /><br />In an earlier episode, http://.waywordradio.org/word-encounters-of-the-first-kind/, we discussed the slang term sketchy, meaning "creepy" or "alarming" or "suspicious." Grant shares an email from a listener suggesting a link to the world of amphetamine users.<br /><br />Quiz Guy John Chaneski stops by with a quiz about superlatives. Naturally, his name for the quiz is Best. Puzzle. Ever.<br /><br />Your brother-in-law the motormouth beats around the bush for so long about something that in exasperation you tell him to "cut to the chase." The hosts explain the Hollywood roots of this phrase.<br /><br />When Barack Obama intoned, "I do not underestimate the enormity of the task ahead," some grammar sticklers recoiled. Pointing to the word's roots, they insist that enormity means not "large," but "out of the ordinary." A caller who's been following a heated online dispute about this word asks the hosts for a verdict. They give the president-elect a pass.<br /><br />Remember when Bugs Bunny used to say, "Now wait just a cotton-pickin' minute?" A caller wants to know if cotton-pickin' has racist overtones. <br /><br />In an earlier episode, http://waywordradio.org/a-moniker-for-your-monitor/,<br />we discussed whether there's a word for "a drawn-out leav