Matt Soniak

You will instantly reveal yourself as a landlubber if you refer to a ship as a boat. Here’s how to tell the difference.

Historians link trick-or-treating to a few different ancestors, some old and some new.

You know it's a distress signal, but what does it actually stand for? A lot of people think it's an abbreviation for “save our souls.” (It's not.)

The first jack-o'-lanterns were made with turnips, not pumpkins.

Not everyone experiences funny-smelling urine after eating asparagus, but it's common enough that it poses one very big question: why does it happen in the first place?

Discover the origins of the classic phrase 'knock on wood,' which could be tied to a Victorian-era children's game or have more direct ties to old pagan traditions.

Andrew Jackson’s 1828 political campaign kicked it off, and cartoonist Thomas Nast made the political symbols really gain traction.

The amount of gold in Olympic medals is regulated, and there’s a lot less than there used to be.