Mahalia from San Diego, California, has a friendly disagreement with her husband over the phrase it takes all kinds. She understands the expression to mean that the world requires many different kinds of people to function. He thinks it means that...
A teacher in Oakley, Vermont, noted a curious construction among his students while teaching in Maine. They would say things like “We’re all going to the party, and so isn’t he” or “I like to play basketball, and so doesn’t he.” Primarily heard in...
A Toronto, Canada, caller wonders how a notice that an employee is being fired ever came to be known as a pink slip. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Employee Pink Slip” Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hello, this is Claude from...
On the occasion of National Grammar Day, University of Illinois linguist Dennis Barron has pointed out some arresting posters from a wartime version from the early 20th century. They’re from a 1918 Chicago Women’s Club initiative called Better...
Regional grammar can be just as rich and diverse as regional vocabulary. The Yale Grammatical Diversity Project has picked up on all the variations in American English usage and plotted them on a Google Map. Turns out that double modals and the...
only meatball in the rice n.— «I was the only meatball in the rice tonight.…I was on my high school staff and as my best friend in the program put it—”It’s only Six of us Meatballs in the Rice” Meatballs being the black people in the program. Rice...
