Diana from Tucson, Arizona, reports that when she was young, her Irish grandmother would chase her and her misbehaving siblings around the house yelling, “You omadhauns!” Also spelled amadán, this word of Celtic origin means “fool” or “idiot” or “simpleton.” In Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes (Bookshop|Amazon), one character dismisses another as a diddering omadhaun. This is part of a complete episode.
The cardboard cylinder left after the last sheet of toilet, tissue, or wrapping paper comes off the roll has inspired families to make up a lot of names for the tube or the sounds you can make with it. These include oh-ah, oh-ah, drit-drit, dah-dah...
A native Texan says his Canadian wife teases him about his use of hitten for a past participle, as in You have hitten every green light instead of You have hit every green light. Charles Mackay’s 1888 work, A Dictionary of Lowland Scotch, does...
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