You say puh-KAHN, I say PEE-can. Just how do you pronounce the name of the nut called a pecan? Turns out, there are several correct pronunciations. This is part of a complete episode.
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You say puh-KAHN, I say PEE-can. Just how do you pronounce the name of the nut called a pecan? Turns out, there are several correct pronunciations. 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...
On the main page for the show, I made a comment about this segment. Now that I’ve listened to it and tracked down the reference I was remembering, I’d thought I’d elaborate.
Google Books to the rescue, it does appear in Search for Belle Prater (p 52), by Ruth White. The story is set in a coal mining region of Virginia in the 50s. The book is narrated by Gypsy, and in this scene another one of the main characters is talking to a boy (from North Carolina) on an inter-city bus, trying to make friends with him.