A listener in Omaha, Nebraska, says his mother always ends a phone conversation not with Goodbye, but mmm-bye. How common is that? This is part of a complete episode.
Leave a comment
1 comment
More from this show
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...
The discussion of mmm-bye was a delight. A year ago, my South African friend asked me why Americans insist on saying “buh-bye” and “mmm-bye.” Before she asked, I had never consciously heard mmm-bye before. Now I seem to hear it all the time! Anyway, ever since she and I talked about mmm-bye last year, we simply end the calls between us with “mmm.”