Following our earlier conversation about nicknames, listeners are still responding with stories about their own nicknames. Two of those show how nicknames sometimes arise from a single incident, then stick around for years. In one story, a girl spelled out the name Jennifer in all caps, but forgot the final downward stroke on the letter R. Thereafter, she was affectionately called Jennifep and later just Fep. In another, a girl made a connection between a friend named Wendy Larson and a word she learned while paging through an unabridged dictionary. The word is condylarth, which refers to an extinct ungulate animal. For decades thereafter, she referred to her friend Wendy Larson as Condy Larthon, or simply Cond. How did you get your nickname? This is part of a complete episode.
According to Gobsmacked: The British Invasion of American English (Bookshop|Amazon) by Ben Yagoda, the word smarmy, meaning “unctuous” or “ingratiating,” may come from a 19th-century magazine contest, in which readers sent in...
Mary Beth in Greenville, South Carolina, wonders: Why do we say four-oh-nine for the number 409 instead of four-zero-nine or four-aught-nine? What are the rules for saying either zero or oh or aught or ought to indicate that arithmetical symbol...
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