Amy from Charlotte, North Carolina, reports a dispute arose when visiting her brother’s family. Is a large container for storing sugar properly called a can or a canister? The answer involves prototype theory, which in cognitive linguistics and...
Melissa in Charlotte, North Carolina, remembers her grandfather would describe something excellent as better than snuff, but not near as dusty. The snuff in this case refers to finely ground smokeless tobacco. It arose at a time when snuff was...
A Charlotte, North Carolina, shares her granddaughter’s adorable misunderstanding of a word. When a breeze was blowing, the little girl would say it’s winding (rhyming more or less with “wending” rather than...
An alcoholic who’s been sober for 29 years wonders if she’s overly sensitive to the terms non-alcoholic and alcohol-free being used with reference to food and drink. The problem is that alcoholic has more than one meaning. It can refer...
Is Murphy’s Law, or the idea that “anything that can go wrong will go wrong,” a slur against the Irish? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Is “Murphy’s Law” A Slur Against the Irish?”...
Jameela in Charlotte, North Carolina, says her family refers to their television’s remote control as the clicker, but her friends insist on calling it the remote. These devices go by other names as well, including doofer, flicker, zapper, and...