An alcoholic who’s been sober for 29 years wonders if she’s overly sensitive to the terms non-alcoholic and alcohol-free being used with reference to food and drink. The problem is that alcoholic has more than one meaning. It can refer...
The Texas Folklore Society’s book The Best of Texas Folk and Folklore, 1916-1954 (Bookshop|Amazon) offers some wonderful browsing, including this saying to describe an environment that’s too loud: You can’t hear your ears in this place...
Thomas from Huntsville, Alabama, was baffled when his Ohio-born fiancée told him she was going to sweep the house, then proceeded to use a vacuum cleaner. Is she the only person who calls a vacuum cleaner a sweeper? This is part of a complete...
Family surnames often derive from occupations, locations, or physical characteristics, so Quiz Guy John Chaneski has crafted a puzzle about fictitious origins of people’s last names. For example, many folks have farmers in their ancestry, but...
Homer in Kingsport, Tennessee, says that when Homer came in after curfew, his dad would say, “You guys have been out swarping, haven’t you?” Swarping is related to a variety of dialect terms in Scotland and Northern England that...
Dan, an accountant in Cincinnati, Ohio, wonders about the origin of the term bean counter. This is part of a complete episode.