Plant Idioms To Grow Your Vocabulary

by Dictionary Scoop    In honor of summer solstice tomorrow we have cherry-picked 10 expressions related to plants and flowers that will make you want to go outside and smell the roses! 1-Beat around the bush    Some people are direct and cut to the chase, and others take their time to say what they have to say. When …

Read This Column Now, Don’t Put It Off!

by Kevin Burton    So I’ve had this material for a while. My friend Tracy sent it to me. Jusuuuut haven’t gotten around to posting it yet.    You know, busy, busy, busy.    It arrived under the headline “procrastinator’s creed.”    Did you know that if you rearrange the letters in “procrastinator” you get …

More Middle Words From Merriam-Webster

by Kevin Burton    Today we continue a look at words and phrases about the middle from the Merriam Webster dictionary.    We start with two phrases about being forced into difficult decisions: Devil and the deep blue sea    Many phrases that evoke in-between-ness also situate the speaker between two undesirable end points, like the …

Note To Bengals And Self: Don’t Lose Stupid

by Kevin Burton    Two takeaways from Sunday’s Chiefs-Bengals AFC Championship game, one a smirking aside, the other more lasting.    To set up the first one, I remember when the late great John Madden had just left his brilliant career as Oakland Raiders coach and just begun what would prove to be a brilliant …

That Warehouse Look Annoys My Wife

by Kevin Burton    This is going to be harder than I thought, maybe much harder. Home sweet home is getting a makeover.    I have written about my mother’s move to an assisted living facility last summer and the chaos of organizing her new place and fitting new furniture and other things into our …

Letters From Hamburg: Assessment

by Kevin Burton    Years ago there was a series of Skin Bracer after shave commercials where somebody slaps the actor in the face and the actor responds, “Thanks, I needed that.”    Remember those?    It was a bracing wake-up call and somehow was supposed to sell the product. They had celebrities such as …

Love, Tears And Doing The Right Thing

by Kevin Burton    This is a story about a boy and his mother.    The mother has thought things through. She will push through the pain. She is doing the right thing. She is resolute.    The big house on the corner? The boy will be leaving that now. He will be back on …