The Spanish word moco, or “mucus,” can be applied affectionately to a child, much like speakers of English may refer to a youngster as a little booger. In some dialects, moco has a more pejorative sense, suggesting a child is more along the lines of...
Why do we refer to small children as little shavers? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Why Do We Sometimes Call Kids Little Shavers?” Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hi, this is Natalie. How are you? I am calling from southern...
Kid cheater and child cheater are synonyms for spatula, because when you’re baking a cake, a spatula is so efficient for removing the remnants of a sweet mixture from a bowl that there’s little left for a kid to lick off. This is part of a complete...
The phrase “You’re not the boss of me” may have been popularized by the They Might Be Giants song that serves as the theme for TV’s “Malcolm in the Middle.” But this turn of phrase goes back to at least 1883. This is part of a complete episode...
When they happen to say the same word at the very same time, many children play a version of the jinx game that ends with the declaration, “You owe me a Coke!” Martha shares an old version from the Ozarks that ends with a different line: “What goes...
A game making the rounds online involves adding the ending -ing to movie titles, resulting in clever new plots. For example, on our Facebook group, one member observed that The Blair Witch Project becomes The Blair Witch Projecting, “in which high...
