How old is the saying Waiting Till the Cows come Home?

A median is the point that divides a series of numbers so that half are on one side, half on the other. In the series 1, 4, 8, 20, 24, 27, 42, the median is 20. The mean is the average of a series, found by dividing the sum by the number of elements. In…

In the evening, citizens of the Roman Empire constructed their beds by placing straw into a cloth sack. The straw had to be emptied every night to dry; therefore, the beds had to be remade every night. This practice continued until the fifteenth century, in some countries, even later.

In the eighteenth century, the best meat of any meal went to the men of the house and their friends. The women and children ate the umbles, the tongue and entrails, baked in an umble pie. In time, the dish went out of fashion, but the phrase took on a new life that it still…

The abbreviation eg., standing for the Latin exempli gratia, or “for the sake of example,” means exactly that, a series of examples: “large dogs, e.g., Saint Bernards and Great Danes.” The abbreviation i.e., standing for id est, or “that is,” explains the subject you have mentioned: “large dogs, i.e., those over 3 feet tall and…

Bimonthly meetings are held every two months. Meetings held twice a month are sometimes called bimonthly, but they are more accurately described as semimonthly.

The phrase, which has come to refer to a completely inebriated person, derives from sailing, but not from the sails, as one might think. In the early 1800s, chains were used to regulate the angle of the sails, and these were called sheets. When the sheets were loose, the boat would become unstable and “tipsy,”…