You know when a cat’s tail goes straight up and appears to vibrate? Emily from Coventry, Rhode Island, says her family has their own word for that: fribbling. She says her family also made up the word bomple to denote the action of fruit bouncing and rolling on the floor. For example, if a paper bag breaks and apples fall out, they would say that the apples went bompling all over the place. This is part of a complete episode.
According to Gobsmacked: The British Invasion of American English (Bookshop|Amazon) by Ben Yagoda, the word smarmy, meaning “unctuous” or “ingratiating,” may come from a 19th-century magazine contest, in which readers sent in...
Mary Beth in Greenville, South Carolina, wonders: Why do we say four-oh-nine for the number 409 instead of four-zero-nine or four-aught-nine? What are the rules for saying either zero or oh or aught or ought to indicate that arithmetical symbol...
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