Leslie from Hickory, North Carolina, is curious about an expression her grandmother used when the weather was particularly warm. Leslie never saw the expression spelled out, but she guesses it was hot as bringup, and pronounced with a soft g. Was that saying uniquely hers? The more common version is hot as brinjer, an expression that’s likely related to the Scots word breenge, which as a verb means “to rush forward recklessly” and as a noun means “a punch” or “a blow.” In the Scots language, a breengin is “a beating.” In Southern Appalachian dialect, brinjer appears in comparative phrases expressing something extreme, such as hot as brinjer, cold as brinjer, and in statements such as today’s a brinjer or it’s brinjin’ cold today. This is part of a complete episode.
Whitney from Providence, Rhode Island, shares a funny story about her toddler’s misunderstanding of the word Shoo, as in Shoo it away. It has nothing to do with the shoe you wear on your foot! This is part of a complete episode.
A Dallas, Texas, woman and her friends often use the expression All the things to mean something like and whatnot or as a way to signal a kind of mutual understanding, suggesting something similar to the phrase you know. This sense probably comes...
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