Where is Podunk? Grant explains that a columnist in the 1800s used the name for his series called “Life in the Small Town of Podunk,” referring to a generic backwoods American town. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of...
The Century Dictionary contains a list of amended spellings from the late 1800s that only creates more of the confusion it set out to alleviate. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Amended Spellings from 1800s”...
What would you serve a plumber who comes over for dinner? How about … leeks? The hosts play a word game called “What Would You Serve?” Also, can you correct someone’s grammar without ruining a new relationship? And is there...
What’s the origin of word and word up? A theory in Geneva Smitherman’s Black Talk suggests they descend from the African American proverb your word is your bond, popularized in the 1960s by a splinter group from the Nation of Islam. Along the way...
Grant shares some familiar proverbs that supposedly arose from African-American English. The book he mentions is Dictionary of American Proverbs by Wolfgang Mieder. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Dictionary of American...
Some speakers of American English use the word whenever to refer to a single event, as in “whenever Abraham Lincoln died.” This locution is a vestige of Scots-Irish speech. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Scots...