A young listener once asked if there was a single word for “a combination of being nervous but also excited” about something. Listeners offered several of their own coinages, including nervouscited. Another helpful term along these lines might be eustress, which is defined as “a positive emotional response to a stressor.” 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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