Dear Geist,

Are the expressions dull as dishwater and dull as ditchwater related? I grew up in the 1950s, when “dull as dishwater” was a put-down for a boring job, a snore-fest party, a ho-hum person, etc. Now I’m hearing people say “dull as ditchwater” in place of “dull as dishwater.” What happened? Did dishwater go uptown?

—Aaron, Cyberspace

Dear Aaron,

As it happens, dull as ditchwater was in use for a good hundred years before dull as dishwater began to slip in. Dishwater begins to appear in books published in the 1700s, and later in the works of Charles Dickens, among others. We could speculate that dishwater slipped smoothly into ditchwater territory as indoor plumbing came into use, or as large numbers of people moved to cities, the two words being similar and the two substances being equally dull and icky. Or we could just know that language has a life of its own that can’t always be explained.

—The Editors