Gift Horse - 1 July 2019

The edge of the Grand Canyon. A remote mountaintop, or a medieval cathedral. Some places are so mystical you feel like you're close to another dimension of space and time. There's a term for such locales: thin places. And: did you ever go tick-tacking a few nights before Halloween? Tic-tacking refers to pranks like tapping ominously on windows without being caught, or tossing corn kernels all over a front porch. Also, horses run throughout our language, a relic of when these animals were much more commonplace in everyday life. For example, the best place to get information about a horse you might buy isn't from the owner -- it's straight from the horse's mouth. Plus, shoofly pie, bring you down a buttonhole lower, didaskaleinophobia, pangrams by middle schoolers, Albany beef, starting a sentence with Say, and a brain teaser inspired by a New Jersey grandma.

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