Spring Fundraising Show (#1339) -- "Nose Wide Open"

If I had a sponduli for every time I heard this slang term for money, I'd be broke! The slang term Spondoolicks or spondulicks, from the Greek spondulos meaning spine, alludes to a stack of coins, which looks very much like a vertebral column.

What age is middle age? Can an adult be twiddle-aged, a portmanteau of tween and middle-aged? With people retiring much later in life, the term senior is becoming less and less applicable.

Which denomination of American money has an automobile on the back? Before the reissued ten dollar bills in 2007, there was tiny car in front of the U.S.Treasury Building.

"A fool and his money are lucky to get together in the first place," said Gordon Gekko http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094291/ quotes in Oliver Stone's Wall Street. Have people on Wall Street misinterpreted Gekko to think greed is, in fact, good?

A pocket Venus is a beautiful woman, usually one on the petite and wily side. Martha explains a fascinating connection between this term from the 1760s and a resident of Highclere Castle http://www.highclerecastle.co.uk/about-us/lady-almina-the-real-downton-abbey.html of Downton Abbey fame.

If someone's said to have their nose open http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5PTHYdkxgM, it means they've got their eye on a special someone. This phrase seems to have originated among African-Americans and goes back as least as far as the 1940s. It's a wry reference to the phenomenon that biologists know as the flehmen response, which refers to an animal, such as a horse or cat, curling the lip and raising the head to take in pheromones. The saying sometimes appears as to have one's nose wide open. A version also pops up in Kerouac's On The Road http://books.google.com/books?id=Jr5jsdYci2EC&pg=PT365&lpg=PT365&dq=kerouac+on+the+road+%22the+only+trouble+is,+my+nose+opens+up%22&source=bl&ots=0v7hT6RfBT&sig=vIB397ZlhiDH6MwQx0DWRuuhnvQ&hl=en&sa=X&ei=OvNcT83WHqrY0QHtw5GgDw&ved=0CCYQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false.

Quick, what's the average lifespan of a ten dollar bill? Answer: 18 months. It's a pretty short run, considering that these bills, which are 75% cotton, are made to circulate a good deal longer.

NPR Puzzlemaster Will Shortz has a special game of money-themed anagrams. For example, the word debar anagrams to bread, and ironed can be rearranged to form dinero. Also, when you're doing the Times crossword, be on the lookout for dough re mi, a play on the Sound of Music tune.

Who said, "My problem lies in reconciling my gross habits with my net income?" Was it Grant, or was it Martha? Guess again! It was that rakish Hollywood womanizer Errol Flynn.

Remember that line uttered by Sam Elliott in The Big Lebowski? Sometimes you eat the bar, and sometimes, well, he eats you. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPVLyB0Yc6I Or was it bear? Variations on this saying. Examples include Sometimes you're the windshield, sometimes you're the bug, and Sometimes you're the hammer, and sometimes you're the thumb.

What do you call those ridges on the sides of coins? Milling, or reeding, dates back to when coins were made of precious metals, and people would shave some off the sides since it wasn't as noticeable. These days, the milling is just a skeuomorph!

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Support for A Way with Words comes from National University, which invites you to change your future today. Learn more at nu.edu. http://nu.edu

We're also grateful for support from The University of San Diego. Since 1949, USD has been on a mission not only to prepare students for the world, but also to change it. Learn more about the college and five schools of this nationally ranked, independent Catholic university at sandiego.edu. http://sandiego.edu

If I had a sponduli for every time I heard this slang term for money, I'd be broke! The slang term Spondoolicks or spondulicks, from the Greek spondulos meaning spine, alludes to a stack of coins, which looks very much like a vertebral column.

What age is middle age? Can an adult be twiddle-aged, a portmanteau of tween and middle-aged? With people retiring much later in life, the term senior is becoming less and less applicable.

Which denomination of American money has an automobile on the back? Before the reissued ten dollar bills in 2007, there was tiny car in front of the U.S.Treasury Building.

"A fool and his money are lucky to get together in the first place," said Gordon Gekko http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094291/ quotes in Oliver Stone's Wall Street. Have people on Wall Street misinterpreted Gekko to think greed is, in fact, good?

A pocket Venus is a beautiful woman, usually one on the petite and wily side. Martha explains a fascinating connection between this term from the 1760s and a resident of Highclere Castle http://www.highclerecastle.co.uk/about-us/lady-almina-the-real-downton-abbey.html of Downton Abbey fame.

If someone's said to have their nose open http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5PTHYdkxgM, it means they've got their eye on a special someone. This phrase seems to have originated among African-Americans and goes back as least as far as the 1940s. It's a wry reference to the phenomenon that biologists know as the flehmen response, which refers to an animal, such as a horse or cat, curling the lip and raising the head to take in pheromones. The saying sometimes appears as to have one's nose wide open. A version also pops up in Kerouac's On The Road http://books.google.com/books?id=Jr5jsdYci2EC&pg=PT365&lpg=PT365&dq=kerouac+on+the+road+%22the+only+trouble+is,+my+nose+opens+up%22&source=bl&ots=0v7hT6RfBT&sig=vIB397ZlhiDH6MwQx0DWRuuhnvQ&hl=en&sa=X&ei=OvNcT83WHqrY0QHtw5GgDw&ved=0CCYQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false.

Quick, what's the average lifespan of a ten dollar bill? Answer: 18 months. It's a pretty short run, considering that these bills, which are 75% cotton, are made to circulate a good deal longer.

NPR Puzzlemaster Will Shortz has a special game of money-themed anagrams. For example, the word debar anagrams to bread, and ironed can be rearranged to form dinero. Also, when you're doing the Times crossword, be on the lookout for dough re mi, a play on the Sound of Music tune.

Who said, "My problem lies in reconciling my gross habits with my net income?" Was it Grant, or was it Martha? Guess again! It was that rakish Hollywood womanizer Errol Flynn.

Remember that line uttered by Sam Elliott in The Big Lebowski? Sometimes you eat the bar, and sometimes, well, he eats you. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPVLyB0Yc6I Or was it bear? Variations on this saying. Examples include Sometimes you're the windshield, sometimes you're the bug, and Sometimes you're the hammer, and sometimes you're the thumb.

What do you call those ridges on the sides of coins? Milling, or reeding, dates back to when coins were made of precious metals, and people would shave some off the sides since it wasn't as noticeable. These days, the milling is just a skeuomorph!

....

Support for A Way with Words comes from National University, which invites you to change your future today. Learn more at nu.edu. http://nu.edu

We're also grateful for support from The University of San Diego. Since 1949, USD has been on a mission not only to prepare students for the world, but also to change it. Learn more about the college and five schools of this nationally ranked, independent Catholic university at sandiego.edu. http://sandiego.edu