Accent imitation can be part of ordinary human mimicry, the same impulse behind matching someone’s cadence, posture, or gestures. Sarah, who lives in Santa Fe and is temporarily in Philadelphia, finds herself reproducing the accent of a coworker...
A listener named Kio from Los Angeles says she spent some time in England, and while her colleagues there claimed that her valley girl slang was rubbing off on them, she herself picked up plenty of English slang. This is a classic linguistic...
If you need a variation on the phrase “son of gun,” there’s always “son of a who cut your hair last.” It’s one of several colorful expressions that a San Diego listener’s great aunt used. Others include...
Julio from Frisco, Texas, asks about “do me a solid,” meaning “do me a favor,” after first hearing it in a context that made him wonder if it had something to do with bowel trouble. The phrase dates at least to the 1960s and appears to come from an...
When somebody sneezes, we say bless you or gesundheit. But suppose that person coughs. Are you supposed to say something — or are they? Plus, Mexican standoffs, gracious plenty, linguistic false friends, southpaw vs. northpaw, the slang of rabbit...
Did you know reading poetry improves your prose? That includes hip-hop lyrics, too. Also, how linguist can guess where you come from based on how you speak. What do you call someone who picks the chocolate out of the trail mix...