Investigating the origins of American words, names, quotations and phrases. Over 41,000 entries.
American author and organizational consultant Warren Bennis (1925-2014) said, as quoted in The Millionaire's Book of Quotations (1991) by Mark Fisher: "The factory of the future will have…
The "Idaho stop" allows cyclists to treat a red light like a stop sign, and a stop sign like a yield sign. The law was developed in 1982 by Carl Bianchi, then the Administrative Director…
Women often break the "glass ceiling" to get a job. However, when women get an executive job, they often face a "glass cliff." As explained in "Introducing... the glass…
Southern California doesn't have the four seasons, but many residents joke that it does have four seasons: eathquake, fire, flood and drought. The joke has been cited in print since at least…
"Why are poets poor? Because rhyme doesn't pay," an old joke has it, punning on "crime doesn't pay." "Afterthought: Who said rhyme doesn't pay?" was…
Male-to-female ratios are disproportionate at some schools (such as engineering schools or former women's colleges), but heterosexual students note that a large proportion of geeks and gays…
“Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, and small minds discuss people” is an old saying. New York-based author Fran Lebowitz changed this saying a bit in Social Studies…
A popular show business saying is that an agent owns a piece of his or her client. The following joke was cited in 1948: "We pass along Edith Gwynn's Hollywood Reporter quote of Van…
"Liberty Enlightening the World" is the official name, but "Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World" was so frequently used that the famous statue in New York harbor is now…
An equestrian statue of King George II (1738-1820) was erected in Manhattan's Bowling Green in August 1770. A fence placed there in 1771 can still be seen today. Following the first reading in…
A popular joke is told about the Texas two-step: "My best friend became addicted to country line dancing. It got so bad he had to enter a two-step program." Versions of the joke date to…
"Alma Mater" is a famous sculpture at Columbia University, installed in 1904 in front of the Low Memorial Library (formerly the campus library building). The sculptor Daniel Chester…
The Greek mythological figure of Atlas holding up the heavens is a 1937 sculpture by Lee Lawrie (1877-1963) that stands in front of the International Building of Rockefeller Center, across the…
The Statue of the Republic, by sculptor Daniel Chester French (1850-1931) was the largest and most symbolic of the Chicago Columbian Exposition (World's Fair) of 1893, Irish-born Minnie Clark,…
The Statue of Justice (or Lady Gotham) is a statue similar to New York City's Statue of Liberty that is located in the fictional Gotham City and appears in the movie Batman Forever (1995),…
"Tax the people and tax with care..." is the first line of a famous tax poem, credited to Don Lupton of the Denver (CO) Post in 1921. The form of the poem probably borrows from the famous…
Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research invented the acronym "NOSH" (Nike, O'Reilly, Starbucks and Home Depot) in November 2015 to describe four important companies in the S&P…
Entry in progress -- B.P. "Nifty" is used in the financial terms "Nifty Fifty" and "Nifty Nine." "Nifty" is said in Wikipedia to mean "National Index…
Charles F. Kettering (1876-1958), president of the General Motors Research Corporation, was cited in 1938: "Thinking is one thing in the world upon which no one has ever been able to put a tax…
"Nifty Fifty" was a term popular in early 1970s to represent fifty growth stocks, with high price-to-earnings ratios, that drove the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The "Nifty…