Tim from Jacksonville, Florida, has long been teased for saying milk more like melk and eggs with a vowel closer to ages. His mother’s South Carolina accent and his father’s Newfoundland accent may have contributed, and these pronunciations have...
Full as a goog is Australian English for completely stuffed, as after a big dinner. Ashley in Danville, Kentucky, learned it while living in Australia and still uses it when her twin daughters eat until their little bellies are taut. A goog is an...
A.J. Jacobs’ book The Puzzler: One Man’s Quest to Solve the Most Baffling Puzzles Ever, from Crosswords to Jigsaws to the Meaning of Life (Amazon|Bookshop) includes this brain teaser translated from Swahili: I am a house without a door. This is part...
Carl in Vancouver, British Columbia, wonders if it’s incorrect to use the word meat to denote the edible part of an egg. Meat can indeed be used to denote the edible part of a nut, a fruit, or an egg. In Middle English, the word meat referred to any...
Sunny-side up eggs sometime go by the name looking at you eggs, an apparent reference to how the yolk in the middle of the egg white makes them resemble eyes. A similar idea appears in the German name, which translates as “mirror egg,” and in...
Here’s a riddle: Within a fountain crystal clear / A golden apple doth appear / No doors or locks to this stronghold / Yet thieves break in and steal the gold. What is it? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Golden Apple Riddle”...

