In some British dialects, the word cackemander means “friend.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Cackemander” Heterological nouns are nouns that sort of don’t sound like what they are. Heterological meaning other...
I liked to died when that ol’ toad-strangler crashed through the veranda! The Southernism liked to, also known as the counterfactual liketa, derives from the sense of like meaning “nearly.” This is part of a complete episode...
The modifier lamming or lammin’, is used as an intensifier, as in “That container is lammin’ full,” meaning “That container is extremely full.” There’s a whole class of intensifying words like this in English, which have to do with the idea of...
Vicki in Appleton, Wisconsin, grew up outside Minneapolis using kype (also rendered as cipe or kipe) for taking something that wasn’t really yours but didn’t seem important to the adults in charge, such as fort-building materials, with the...
Bruce in Indianapolis heard older Indiana farm folks use work-brickle for someone who’s industrious, or, in the negative, not much of a worker. The expression goes back to dialects of the British Isles and survives in U.S. pockets with shifting...