Tom in Dodgeville, Wisconsin, asks about catawampus, cattywampus, or kittywampus, words used for something crooked, askew, or out of line. The Dictionary of American Regional English records related senses including “diagonally across,” “utterly or...
Yeah, no isn’t an oxymoron in miniature. Jade from San Diego notices friends using it before answers such as “we are not spending $50,” and linguists treat it as a discourse marker, a little conversational tool rather than ordinary yes plus ordinary...
If you were raised in North Dakota like our caller, you might wonder about a phrase you heard growing up: “It’s a horse apiece.” It means something like “six of one, half a dozen of the other.” She is curious about the...
A caller remembers an odd phrase from her childhood. If she asked too many questions, her mother would brush them off with the phrase “layers for meddlers and crutches for lame ducks.” Say what? This is part of a complete episode...
It’s the Moby Dick of etymology: Where do we get the phrase “the whole nine yards”? A pediatrician in North Carolina wonders if it derives from a World War II phrase involving “nine yards” of ammunition. Grant and...
On an earlier episode we talked about regional differences involving the words dinner and supper, prompting a whole smorgasbord of responses. Grant reads a few of them on the air. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Dinner and...
