Aubrey in Waco, Texas, says her mother used to warn the kids against contracting honkus of the bonkus, a fanciful name for a contagious disease. This colloquial term probably comes from the words bonk and konk, meaning “to hit” or...
Ben Yagoda’s new book Gobsmacked: The British Invasion of American English, based on his blog Not One-Off Britishisms, which features words and phrases that are originally British but are being used more and more in the States, including...
Tim and Allison Moyer of Ingram, Texas, care for lots of feral cats in their neighborhood, and refer to them by various names. Often they eventually shorten those names to just initial letters. For example, Calico Kitty becomes simply CK. Is there a...