Martha and Grant share a couple of favorite online sources for reading about language: Michael Quinion’s World Wide Words newsletter and Arnold Zwicky’s blog. Be sure to check out Zwicky’s post, “Dialect dangerous to...
“Don’t tump over the canoe!” The verb to tump is familiar to folks in many parts of the United States. Use it elsewhere, though, and you might get some quizzical looks. What does it mean and who uses it? The hosts tump over their...
Where in the world would you be likely to find sculch in your dooryard, or ask for just a dite of cream in your coffee? Martha has the answers in this minicast about some distinctive regional terms.
A caller from Juneau, Alaska, says she was tickled when her friend from the South told her he loves “vye-EEN-ers.” It took a while before she realized he was saying Viennas, as in that finger food so often found a can, the Vienna sausage...
Fess up: do you have a pet name for your car? How about your computer? Martha and Grant discuss the urge to give nicknames to inanimate objects in our lives. Also, why do we speak of vetting a political candidate? And what in the world is a zoo...
platespeak n.— «Is one of Britain’s best-loved dialects, the curious language of personalised number plates, heading for oblivion?…Those who cannot afford the best plates have been forced to use a bit of ingenuity to get close to...