South African English is a rich mix of Afrikaans, English, and indigenous languages such as Zulu and Xhosa. Martha and Grant discuss some favorite terms from that part of the world, including lekker, diski, and ubuntu. Also, where’d we get the...
Martha shares a listener’s email about a pet’s name changing over time. In this case, it’s a cat whose name morphed from “Orange Juice” all the way to “Lanny.” Martha traces the con-cat-enation of monikers...
Martha shares another email about the evolution of a pet’s name, in this case a dog whose original name was Dumpster. Now the pooch is named after the 19th president of the United States. Sort of. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript...
In an earlier episode, we discussed linguistic false friends, those words in foreign languages that look like familiar English words, but mean something quite different. Martha reads an email response from a listener who learned the hard way that in...
Martha shares listener email about linguistic “false friends,” those perplexing words in other languages that look like English words, but mean something completely different. A case in point is the detergent popular in the Middle East...
Hello and happy Ides of March! On this week's show, the topic was wedgie technique, specifically the difference between a "murphy" and a "melvin." We also talked about the origin of "mad props," the uses of...