Two Shades of Grey - 4 June 2012

<p>You've probably noticed how work always seems to expand to fill the time given to complete it. But did you know there's a term for that? Also this week, the New England exclamation So don't I!, gray vs. gray, stories in a building, being squiffy, having chops, getting involved in pull-hauls, nubby Pennsylvanians, and a modern Greek idiom about hiccups and burning ears. <br /><br />FULL DETAILS<br /><br />If you're feeling squiffy, it means you're drunk, especially in 19th century British slang. If someone has a golden gut, on the other hand, it means they have good business acumen. <br /><br />If someone is being nibby or nubby, they're nosy. This Western Pennsylvania http://www.popularpittsburgh.com/pittsburgh-info/pittsburgh-culture/pittsburghese.aspx term goes back to the old Scottish term nib or neb, meaning nose. <br /><br /> What does it mean to have chops? In the 1500s, chops was a slang term for the face or lips, but it carried into African-American jazz culture to mean that a brass or wind player had good embouchure. The idea is reflected in the old jazz musician's saying, "If you ain't got the chops for the dots, ain't nothing' happening." Having chops eventually came to mean having talent in other disciplines as well.<br /><br />The New England phrase So don't I http://www.bu.edu/mfeldman/Boston/wicked.html, meaning you agree, is so embedded in the culture that it's now part of the regional stereotype. Linguist Laurence Horn http://books.google.com/books?id=7ESeXUD10c0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=laurence+horn&hl=en&sa=X&ei=vMG_T5HKLuTw6AGqvcGbCg&ved=0CFkQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=so%20don't%20I&f=false work has discussed the phenomenon, as have we http://www.waywordradio.org/love-joe-floggers-so-dont-i/ !<br /><br /> Our Quiz Guy John Chaneski has an improvement on the hoary puzzle about words ending in gry http://www.snopes.com/language/puzzlers/gry.asp. For example, if someone has posted to Tumblr in a while, they might be feeling a bit bloggry. If you're in the mood to do some karaoke, you might be describ