Lydia in Portland, Maine, was texting someone about having seen an opossum, but wasn’t quite sure how to write that out with the article. Is it a or an opposum? Like most Americans, she drops the initial unstressed syllable, making it sound like...
A physician in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, shares some of the vocabulary of his patients from Appalachia. There, a misery is anything painful, such as a misery in my jaw if they have a painful tooth or a misery in my back if they have lumbar pain...
Kara in Charlotte, North Carolina, was shopping in New Brunswick, Canada, hoping to find a warm hat. She asked for a toboggan, but the store clerk was incredulous. Depending on where you’re from toboggan can mean either “a long, knitted hat” or “a...
Danielle from Wells, Vermont, wonders if there’s a difference between a possum and an opossum. Scientifically speaking, they’re two different animals. The word opossum comes from a similar-sounding Algonquian term that translates as “the white...
You say puh-KAHN, I say PEE-can. Just how do you pronounce the name of the nut called a pecan? Turns out, there are several correct pronunciations. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Pecan Pronunciation” Hello, you have A Way with...