If you’re telling a story involving someone with an accent, and while relaying what so-and-so said, you imitate that person’s accent, is that cool? If your retelling starts to sound offensive or gets in the way of good communication...
For a compendium of slanderous Elizabethan expressions, try Barry Kraft’s book, Shakespeare Insult Generator. There are more sources online for sneering Shakespearean phrases and randomly generated insults inspired by the Bard, perfect for the...
A Spotswood, Virginia, listener came across the phrase “steppin’ and fetchin'” used in a positive way to describe a speedy race run by the great horse Secretariat. But the phrase has an ugly past. To step and fetch is how many...
The idiom “I haven’t seen you in a coon’s age,” comes from an old reference to raccoons living a long time. Given the racial sensitivity involving the word, however, it’s best to use an alternative. This is part of a...
How did the first person to say a dirty word know it was a dirty word? Geoffrey Hughes’ Encyclopedia of Swearing is a great source on this. This is part of a complete episode.
If you need to release some tension but don’t want to curse, try shouting “sacapuntas!” This Spanish word for “pencil sharpener” falls into a colorful line of curses that aren’t actually curses. For plenty of...