Holly from Camden, South Carolina, says her grandmother used to sprinkle lots of pepper on their food, advising the family that heavily seasoning food that way meant that they wouldn’t get the pips. The term the pips or the pip was originally a term applied to a disease suffered by poultry, and over time its meaning became more generalized to mean a wide variety of unspecified ailments. This is part of a complete episode.
A Winter Dictionary (Bookshop|Amazon) by Paul Anthony Jones includes some words to lift your spirits. The verb whicken involves the lengthening of days in springtime, a variant of quicken, meaning “come to life.” Another word, breard, is...
Rosalind from Montgomery, Alabama, says her mother used to scold her for acting like a starnadle fool. The more common version of this term is starnated fool, a term that appears particular to Black English, and appears in the work of such writers...
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