An engineer at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, says he and his colleagues refer to tangled underwater cables as wuzzles. Does anyone else? At least as early as the mid-19th century, the verb wuzzle has meant “to jumble” or “to put in a state of confusion.” By extension, it also means “to intoxicate” or “muddle,” as does the obsolete word fuzzle. This is part of a complete episode.
The so-called “lifestyle influencer accent” you hear in videos on TikTok and YouTube, where someone speaks with rising tones at the end of sentences and phrases, suggesting that they’re about to say something important, is a form of what linguists...
Meg in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, gets why the state highway department encourages drivers to use their blinkers when changing lanes, but placing a digital sign at the Sagamore Bridge that reads Use Ya Blinkah is, well, a lexical bridge too far. Meg’s...
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