David from Kalamazoo, Michigan, is a former truck driver who remembers that his fellow users of CB radio tended to sound similar, no matter what part of the country they were from. Is there such a thing as an occupational accent? Many of those truck drivers sound like Jerry Reed from the 1977 movie “Smokey and the Bandit,” and C.W. McCall’s 1975 song “Convoy.” You can find lots of other samples of CB radio chatter on archive.org. People involved in the same enterprise, such as airline pilots and air-traffic controllers, will begin to develop similar patterns of speech. This is part of a complete episode.
What makes a great first line of a book? How do the best authors put together an initial sentence that draws you in and makes you want to read more? We’re talking about the openings of such novels as George Orwell’s 1984...
To slip someone a mickey means to doctor a drink and give it to an unwitting recipient. The phrase goes back to Mickey Finn of the Lone Star Saloon in Chicago, who in the late 19th century was notorious for drugging certain customers and relieving...
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