Andre from Campbellsville, Kentucky, says his mother won’t watch a movie if it’s ary a bit violent. What does the word ary mean? Spelled airy,ara, arey, or ery, this dialectal term a shortening of ever a, and means “any” or “a single,” so the sentence I didn’t say ary a word means “I didn’t say ever a word” or “I didn’t say a single word.” In the same way, nary means “never a.” 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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