Katie in Tallahassee, Florida, saw a friend cooking with what she called a Scottish spurtle, a kitchen utensil that looks like a wooden dowel with a knob on the end, used to stir hot cereals and rice. Soon after, her husband saw an infomercial on YouTube for an Amish spurtle, which was also made of wood, but was flatter and slightly curved. What’s the origin of spurtle, and why does the same word apply to different kinds of utensils? In Scotland, a dowel-shaped spurtle is also called a thivel, a flat one is called a couthie spurtle. The origin of spurtle is unclear. It may be related to other “flat”-related words spatula and spade, but it might be formed by metathesis from an Old Norse word that also gives us sprit, meaning “stick,” as in the bowsprit of a boat. Serious Scottish spurtle fans gather each year for the Golden Spurtle World Porridge Making Championship. 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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