The Big Cheese - 10 February 2014

<p>Is it time to replace the expression "the mentally ill"? Some argue that it's is stigmatizing and doesn't reflect the diversity of the human condition. And why do we say "put on your shoes and socks"? After all, it's your socks that go on first. Plus, why do we call a powerful person "the big cheese"? The answer has nothing to do with dairy products. Also, skitching, epizootics, horse kickles, nimrods, who vs. that, and Turkish proverbs.<br /><br />FULL DETAILS<br /><br />A father of five shared with us his kids' favorite joke even. (And yes, it's terribly corny.)<br /><br />Calling a hotshot the big cheese comes from the word chiz, which in both Persian and Urdu means "thing." <br /><br />Don't try this at home, but the winter pastime of grabbing a car's rear bumper and getting dragged along an icy road is called skitching.<br /><br />A Turkish proverb about listening and paying attention: To one who understands, a mosquito is a lute. To one who does not understand, a drum and zurna are little.<br /><br />Is it okay to say the person that did it, or should you say the person who did it? Both are fine, although who is probably preferable in that it acknowledges that person's humanity.<br /><br />Our groovy Quiz Guy John Chaneski has a quiz about the language of the 1960's, updated for the Me Generation.<br /><br />How did Nimrod, the name of a mighty hunter and a great grandson of Noah, come to mean a lamebrain idiot?<br /><br />Smoking cigars is such an attractive act, it's sometimes known as herfing. <br /><br />A caller thinks he once heard a word that means "attracted to shiny objects." The best we can do is neophilia.<br /><br />Put on your shoes and socks. Born and bred. Lock and load. The reason that the words in these phrases are illogically ordered probably has something to do with the way one forms vowels in the mouth. If you think too hard about these terms, they start to look preposterous, the etymology of which has to do with putting things in the wrong order as well.<br /><br />The mentally ill i