Wendy from Charlotte, North Carolina, was baffled when a co-worker asked, Are you ready to race for pinks? The phrase racing for pinks refers to participating in car races where the winner gets ownership of a car, the pinks referring to the pink-colored page in a multi-part document conferring the car’s title. The pink slip mentioned when someone is let go from a job refers to pink interoffice memo pages, that color signaling a message that’s more urgent than messages on white paper. This is part of a complete episode.
The so-called “lifestyle influencer accent” you hear in videos on TikTok and YouTube, where someone speaks with rising tones at the end of sentences and phrases, suggesting that they’re about to say something important, is a form of what linguists...
Meg in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, gets why the state highway department encourages drivers to use their blinkers when changing lanes, but placing a digital sign at the Sagamore Bridge that reads Use Ya Blinkah is, well, a lexical bridge too far. Meg’s...
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The pink document for car ownership is mentioned in the Beach Boys’ song “Little Deuce Coupe”:
And if that ain’t enough to make you flip your lid
There’s one more thing, I got the pink slip, daddy