Melissa in Greensboro, North Carolina, has been sparring with the Gen Z members of her family over the shifting meanings of words. Her kids use aesthetic as an adjective to mean “aesthetically pleasing,” as in That’s so aesthetic. They also refer to...
When working on a construction site in Kentucky, Te’koa from Norfolk, Virginia, heard someone use the term si-gogglin to describe something that’s “crooked,” or “curvy.” Variants heard primarily in Appalachia...
How do languages change and grow? Does every language acquire new words in the same way? Martha and Grant focus on how that process happens in English and Spanish. Plus, the stories behind the Spanish word gringo and the old instruction to...
A nine-year-old from Yuma, Arizona, wants to know the origin of catawampus. So do etymologists. Catawampus means “askew,” “awry,” or “crooked.” We do know the word has been around for more than a century and is...
Sure, it’s scary to send your writing to a literary agent. But pity the poor agent who must wade through hundreds of terrible query letters a week! One of them shares excerpts from those hilariously bad query letters on a blog called SlushPile...
Catawampus, meaning “askew,” can be spelled at least 15 different ways. It likely derives from the English word cater, meaning “diagonal. ” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Catawampus” Hello, you...
