Nate in Tucson, Arizona, says his grandmother from Nova Scotia used to express surprise with the exclamation dear me suz! It goes back to the 1820s and is likely a form of dear me, sirs! Variants include suz alive, law me suz, oh suz alive, and law suz. The phrase dear me suz appears in the slavery narrative of Peter Wheeler, and Mark Twain’s story, The $30,000 Bequest. This is part of a complete episode.
When you’re talking about the location of an inanimate object, is it okay to say that it lives there, as in The peanut butter lives in that cabinet or The flashlight lives on that shelf? Strictly speaking, of course, that object isn’t...
Sean in Oneonta, New York, says that when he was growing up in New Jersey, his family would pile in the car and set off on a surprise adventure, whether a short distance or long, and the kids would be told only that they were going on Buxtehude...
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