A listener in Shreveport, Louisiana, reports that after a fine meal, her father used to announce, “I have dined sufficiently, and I have been well surossified.” It’s a joking exaggeration of the word satisfied. In a 1980 article in American Speech...
Language enthusiasts, rejoice! Jonathon Green’s extraordinary Green’s Dictionary of Slang is now available online. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Green’s Dictionary of Slang” You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about...
A woman in Middlesex, Vermont, says that when she was a girl her parents sometimes described her as porky, but they weren’t referring to her appearance — they meant she was acting rebelliously. This use of the word might be related to pawky, or...
A caller from Vermont says his Mississippi-born grandfather always called him a pussle-gut, and admonish him about an unseen wampus cat. The former, also spelled puzzle-gut, simply means “a fat or pot-bellied person,” the pussle being related to...
The term no-see-ums refers to those pesky gnats that come out in the heat and humidity and are so tiny they’re almost invisible. The term goes back at least as far as the 1830s, and is heard particularly in the Northeastern United States. This is...
In parts of the South, according to the Dictionary of American Regional English, the word mess can denote “a witty, clever, or mischievous person.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “A Southern Mess” You know, we were talking earlier...
