The term sticky wicket, meaning “a difficult situation” comes from the game of cricket. When wet, the grassy playing field known called the wicket will cause the ball to bounce erratically, creating an unpredictable, challenging surface. The phrases batting on a sticky wicket or playing on a sticky wicket have come to suggest more generally being in an awkward, perplexing situation. Cricket has produced lots of colorful terms, including dibbly-dobbly, silly mid-off, and sledging, the last of these referring to the act of taunting or insulting other players in order to rattle their confidence or concentration. 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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