A Carmel, Indiana, teacher is puzzled to hear younger colleagues pronounce the words kitten and mitten as KIH-un and MIH-un, with a noticeable break between the syllables. Linguist David Eddington of Brigham Young University reports that this...
A San Diego resident who grew up in Ethiopia wonders: If U.S. presidents’ wives have always been referred to as the First Lady, what title is appropriate for the male spouse of a head of state? First Gentleman? First Dude? This is part of a...
Saucered and blowed is an idiom meaning that a project is finished or preparations are complete, but it’s not that odd—Bill Clinton’s used it. It derives from the rustic practice of spilling boiling-hot coffee into a saucer and blowing...
Many public speakers, including President Obama, have developed a reputation for using the reduplicative copula. You know, that thing where he says, “the thing of it is, is…” In wonky speak, this is what happens when a cleft...
triple n.— «Who is Bill Clinton’s wife? What’s the capital city of Oregon? What is Britney Spears’ mother’s name? The answers to these and other factual questions are now displayed above natural search results in Google and the...
The election’s still months away, but a caller in Okinawa, Japan wonders how the husband of a female U.S. president should be addressed if the husband himself is a former president. The hosts rule out “First Laddie.” This is part...