Kelly in Tallahassee, Florida, describes a game her family enjoys in the days leading up to Christmas. The goal is to be first to say Christmas gift! when greeting someone or answering the phone. It’s not just Kelly’s family. It’s a tradition dating back more than a century — Civil War soldiers sometimes alluded to it in their letters home. This is part of a complete episode.
The so-called “lifestyle influencer accent” you hear in videos on TikTok and YouTube, where someone speaks with rising tones at the end of sentences and phrases, suggesting that they’re about to say something important, is a form of what linguists...
Meg in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, gets why the state highway department encourages drivers to use their blinkers when changing lanes, but placing a digital sign at the Sagamore Bridge that reads Use Ya Blinkah is, well, a lexical bridge too far. Meg’s...
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