Emma in Texas has a dispute with her dad over the pronunciation of the word oil. The Linguistic Atlas of the Gulf States records no fewer than eight different pronunciations of this word. This is part of a complete episode.
If you’re fair to middling (or with the g dropped: fair to middlin’), you’re doing just fine. A native of the Tennessee mountains wonders about the origin of this phrase her good-humored grandfather used. As it turns out, fair to...