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.
According to Gobsmacked: The British Invasion of American English (Bookshop|Amazon) by Ben Yagoda, the word smarmy, meaning “unctuous” or “ingratiating,” may come from a 19th-century magazine contest, in which readers sent in...
Mary Beth in Greenville, South Carolina, wonders: Why do we say four-oh-nine for the number 409 instead of four-zero-nine or four-aught-nine? What are the rules for saying either zero or oh or aught or ought to indicate that arithmetical symbol...
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