Dan from Jacksonville, Florida, grew up in south Louisiana, where speakers of Cajun French say garde de donc! to mean “Well, would you look at that!” or “Can you believe this?” The phrase is used to point out something foolish or surprising. The same idea may be rendered as mais garde donc or garde donc or garde mais donc, the garde coming from the French word meaning “look at” and the donc meaning “there.” It’s unrelated to the term gaga, which originates in French hospital slang gâteux, referring to someone who lacks all their faculties. 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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