The word mall, as in shopping mall, has traveled a long and winding path, beginning with the Italian game of pallamaglio, which was played with a ball and a mallet. The name of the game found its way into French as pallemaille, which in turn became...
Ruth from Philadelphia asks whether hiya, a greeting she grew up using near Quakertown, Pennsylvania, is a real word or just a local oddity. The form is well attested: the Dictionary of American Regional English records American examples back to...

