January 17, 2010 As for gung-ho, Ralph Keyes points out in his new I Love It When You Talk Retro that it was the motto of a New Zealand group, taken from the Chinese words kung and ho – work and together. A colonel in the South Pacific adopted it for his Marine battalion, and …
History Geek
Eating Crow, Passing the Buck and Talking Turkey I painted this study of negative space after reading a review of Ralph Keyes lastest book, I Love It When You Talk Retro, Hoochie Coochie, Double Whammy, Drop a Dime and the Forgotten Origins of American Speech. Mr. Keyes’ previous book was the inspiration for a previous …
All Sides
An hour-long interview with Ralph on WOSU in Columbus can heard by clicking on the link.
Time Magazine Interview with Ralph Keyes
Hooking Up and Using the John: Why Do We Use So Many Euphemisms? Author Ralph Keyes is intrigued by how we say certain things without quite saying them. In Euphemania: Our Love Affair with Euphemisms, he explores subjects that have inspired creative phrasing, from sex and money to food and death. Whether it’s because we …
Yellow Springs News (Ohio)
The Quirky History of Euphemisms I have been having a lot of fun reading Ralph Keyes’s latest book Euphemania: Our Love Affair with Euphemisms. He’s a smart guy and he’s written a lot of smart books – this is his fifteenth book – and this is another one. Keyes opens his fascinating book with a …
Euphemism of the Week
Sadly, the euphemism of the week is “second amendment remedies.”