The owner of a Berlin, Maryland, produce stand wants to know: When a customer is buying four ears of corn, should they say I have four corn or I have four ears of corn? Corn is a mass noun that can also be counted as a plural, just as we might say I...
Here’s an unparalleled misalignment, with a punning payoff: sickness pay and coffee. (Get it?) This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Also Green Card?” Here’s another one of those unparalleled misalignments. Sickness pay and coffee...
Among the words added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2024 is babyccino, “a children’s drink consisting of hot milk that has been frothed up with pressurized steam so as to resemble a cappuccino.” Originating in Australia, this term has been...
Following up on our conversation about terms for “weak coffee,” a listener in Mexico reports that there, such a beverage is sometimes called agua de calcetín or “sock water.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Agua De Calcetín”...
Marissa in Tallahassee, Florida, is puzzled when a friend observes that coffee goes through her like salts through a widow-woman, meaning that the beverage makes its way swiftly through her digestive system. The expression, which has been around...
If you like your tea barefoot, it doesn’t mean you’re kicking your shoes off. It means you’re drinking it without milk or sugar. Similarly, barefoot bread is made without shortening, lard, or eggs, and barefoot dumplings are made of just water...
