A Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, listener says when he was growing up, his family used the word schmutz as a verb. For example, when one parent reminded the other to apply sunscreen to the youngsters, they might say Make sure you schmutz the kids...
Grace in Abilene, Texas, says her grandmother, who was of German descent, would tell children to stop sulking or pouting with a word that sounded to Grace like “mooksie.” Her grandmother was probably using a form of the German dialectal terms...
Tommy in Lexington, Kentucky, reports that when he was serving in the U.S. military in Vietnam he heard the expression Mox nix, meaning “I don’t care” or “It doesn’t matter.” It’s a version of a German es Macht nichts, or “It’s nothing.” This is...
In parts of the United States, cottage cheese is called smearcase, from German Schmierkäse, a combination of schmieren, “smear,” and Käse, “cheese.” This is part of a complete episode.
Rich in Jackson, Wyoming, is searching for a word for using natural objects such as a rocks, driftwood, or antlers, as decoration. He considered the German Natur, “nature,” and Kunst, “art,” but it didn’t quite fit...
Why do we write the sound of a dog barking as bow wow? Isn’t that noise more like woof, woof or arf, arf or ruff ruff? Surprisingly, the oldest of these is bow wow, or as William Shakespeare wrote in The Tempest (Bookshop|Amazon), bowgh wawgh...