Even though most of us don't use horses or buggies as our main transportation these days, our language still has horse-related idioms, which writers sometimes mix up.

An editor asked about "soup to nuts," which appeared in this story. It means from beginning to end or the whole shebang, of course, but then we wondered where the phrase comes from. 

One copy editor duty is to keep vulgar words and phrases out of the newspaper -- or at least, to alert a decision-making editor about an off-color reference, even in a direct quote.