New research shows that you may be less influenced by superstitious behavior like walking under ladders or the magic of four-leaf clovers if you’re reading about it in another language. • Sometimes not cursing will catch someone’s ear...
The term bobbery means a noisy disturbance or hubub. The word’s origin is disputed, although one explanation is that it comes from the Hindi exclamation “Bap re!” or literally, “Oh father!” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of...
A listener in Two Rivers, Wisconsin, was surprised to learn that in England the word marrow refers to zucchini. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Marrow Vegetable” We heard from Lucy Zeldin-Rust, who listens to us in Two...
“Time to get kip” means “time to get some sleep.” Kip goes all the way back to an old Dutch word that means “brothel.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Kip Means Sleep” Hi...
Jonathan in San Diego, California, remembers his father answering How’s it going? with same old six and eight. The phrasing is very rare, but it may be a family or misremembered variant of the British same old seven and six, meaning things are...
Alex in Montreal wonders why his Canadian Armed Forces unit uses the British-style pronunciation lef-TEN-ant for lieutenant, while Americans usually say loo-TEN-ant. Both pronunciations trace to French before the word entered English, with the f...