Steve, a singer-songwriter from Rock Springs, Wyoming, shares some slang he picked up while months riding the rails and busking. Spanging refers to panhandling, from asking for “spare change.” The term bull refers to a type of security guard. Riding junk refers to traveling on a slow train. The pusher engine is called the Cadillac. The book On the Fly!: Hobo Literature and Songs, 1879–1941 (Bookshop|Amazon) edited by Iain McIntyre is a fine collection of stories, poems, songs, and articles from and about that subculture. 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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