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.
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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