The art of the invitation can be tricky. An inviter’s idea of invitation may be taken by an invitee as merely mentioning an event while they’re nearby. One such a misunderstanding went on for months! Plus, George Saunders, winner of the...
The admonition Don’t Mess with Texas may sound like a tough guy’s warning, but it started out as an anti-littering slogan more than 40 years ago. In the 1980s, the Texas Department of Transportation launched the campaign to cut roadside litter that...
A kerfuffle is a fuss, bother, or disturbance. It’s from Scots curfuffle, likely from Scottish Gaelic car, meaning “turn,” “bend,” or “twist,” plus fuffle, a Scots word that means “to disorder” or “to ruffle.” Early forms like carfuffle and...
A California listener shares a couple of pranks from her time in the U.S. Marines, where unsuspecting recruits would be ordered to complete impossible tasks. She remembers that newbies would be sent to retrieve a bucket of frequency grease or a...
Andy, a listener in Fairbanks, Alaska, has always referred to a stiff neck as a crick, so he was surprised when he heard a high school football coach from Missouri complain of a creak in his neck and justified the pronunciation with creaky. In North...
In Australia and New Zealand, to get off your bike means to “lose your temper or become agitated”, and Don’t get off your bike is a way of saying “Calm down.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “In Australia...