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, meaning some “undetermined place.” There’s a small town in Germany called Buxtehude, and Germans use the expression aus Buxtehude to mean “from the boondocks” or “in the middle of nowhere.” The town also figures in the story of “The Hare and the Hedgehog” from Grimm’s Fairy Tales (Bookshop|Amazon). Buxtehude is also fancifully described as the place where dogs bark with their tails. This is part of a complete episode.
After our conversation about towns with extremely short names, many listeners wrote to tell us about Why, Arizona. Others pointed out that there are towns called Ely in Iowa, Minnesota, and Nevada. Other super-short appellations include Rye, New...
Debbie from Crawfordsville, Florida, says that when she and her husband reach an impasse while working on something, they’ll say Let’s grok about it, which they use to mean “Let’s think about it.” Grok was coined by...
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