A caller who grew up in rural Pennsylvania remembers being asked as a child, “Are you being have?” instead of “Are you behaving?” Being have, with a long a sound, results from what linguists call reanalysis. It occurs when...
Why do we call a peanut a goober? The word comes from the Bantu languages of East Africa. This is part of a complete episode.
A seventh-grader from Colorado wonders where the word freckle comes from. This word’s origin is a bit murky but appears to be related to old Scandinavian term rooted in the idea of “scattering,” like the seeds that freckles...
A 13-year-old from San Diego, California, wonders: Why do we call that breakfast staple toast instead of, say, toasted bread? It’s natural to find shortcuts for such terms; we’ve also shortened pickled cucumbers to just pickles. This is...
A nine-year-old from Yuma, Arizona, wants to know the origin of catawampus. So do etymologists. Catawampus means “askew,” “awry,” or “crooked.” We do know the word has been around for more than a century and is...
A high school student called in to ask about a term his peers use for flirting: chopping. Ever heard it? This is part of a complete episode.