Susan from Asheville, North Carolina, is surprised that fellow members of her writers’ group didn’t understand her use of the phrase I was on my ear meaning “I was upset.” This expression and variants of it have been around since at least the 1860s. To spin around on your ear means “to get violently angry,” to go off on your ear or to slide out on your ear means to depart angrily. Or telling someone Walk off on your ear is the equivalent of telling them to go to hell. Future U.S. president Harry Truman described his own father as being on his ear when Truman failed to show up somewhere on time. This is part of a complete episode.
A Winter Dictionary (Bookshop|Amazon) by Paul Anthony Jones includes some words to lift your spirits. The verb whicken involves the lengthening of days in springtime, a variant of quicken, meaning “come to life.” Another word, breard, is...
Rosalind from Montgomery, Alabama, says her mother used to scold her for acting like a starnadle fool. The more common version of this term is starnated fool, a term that appears particular to Black English, and appears in the work of such writers...
Subscribe to the fantastic A Way with Words newsletter!
Martha and Grant send occasional messages with language headlines, event announcements, linguistic tidbits, and episode reminders. It’s a great way to stay in touch with what’s happening with the show.
