A North Carolina listener is fond of the German loanword Weltschmerz, literally “world pain,” a compound word made up of Welt, cognate with English world and Schmerz, cognate with smart as in That smarts! Coined by a 19th-century German author who...
The verb substitute has very different understandings depending on the prepositional company it keeps. For example, ask a barista, Can I substitute regular milk for lactose-free milk? and you’re usually asking for regular milk, not lactose-free...
Why don’t we refer to prunes as dried plums? Prune and plum come from the same distant etymological roots and traveled into English via French and German respectively. The French still use prune for “plum.” Other foods that undergo a name change...
In the Scots language, pree means “to taste” or “sample.” If you pree someone’s mouth, then you give them a kiss on the lips. It’s a variant of the word prove, and cognate with Spanish probar, to “taste.” This is part of a complete episode...
The spanking in the phrase brand spanking new has been used as an intensifier since the 16th century and may be related to a Danish word meaning to strut. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “The Spanking in Brand Spanking New” Hello...
A Tallahassee, Florida, listener heard an interview in which actor William H. Macy referred to old cockers, apparently meaning “old fellows.” Although one meaning of cocker is “pal,” Macy was probably alluding to the Yiddish alte kacker, or alter...
