Star in Santa Claus, Indiana, says her grandpa nicknamed her Snooksy. But why? A popular radio show that ran from 1936 to 1951 featured Fanny Brice playing a mischievous character named Baby Snooks, loosely based on a comic strip character, Baby Snookums. Snooksy-wooksy, Lambsy-wamsy, and Honey-bun are all hypocoristic names formed by reduplication. 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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