beef (wipeout)

Why is someone who has taken a bad fall said to have beefed?

Especially common in skater vernacular, the term beef—meaning a bad fall or wipeout—comes from the original sense of slaughtering an animal for beef, a similarly gruesome outcome.

(Skater majorly beefs.)

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mah jongg

From where did the Chinese tile game mah jongg get its name?

Mah jongg comes from the Chinese dialect word májiàng, "sparrows," supposedly so-called for the game's sparrow-printed tile.

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