Steve in Neenah, Wisconsin, says he’d not heard the term suss out in a long time, but then suddenly he was hearing again it in several different places. What he’s experiencing is the frequency illusion, also known as the Baader-Meinhof...
Jeff from Iron Mountain, Michigan, is curious about the word happenstance. It’s a combination of the words happen and circumstance, and means by chance or by accident. Happenstance has been around since the 1850s. It outlasted a couple of competing...
Brian from Edison, New Jersey, noticed that the Mid-Atlantic convenience-store chain Wawa uses a goose in its logo, and that French oie, “goose,” is pronounced much like wawa. The store’s name comes from Wawa, Pennsylvania, and wawa was already a...
The names Australia and Austria are awfully similar. Is it a coincidence? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Australia and Austria” Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hi, Martha. This is Sendel Rivallery in Chicago...
God wink n. something taken as evidence that a higher power is at work; a coincidence. Editorial Note: The term was popularized by Squire Rushnell in his 2003 book When God Winks and in his subsequent books. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)