Cara, a real-estate lawyer in Rhode Island, was surprised by gazump, meaning to cheat a home buyer at the last minute, often by raising the price just before the contract is signed. The word turns up in the United States in the 1920s, apparently...
Why do we have piggy banks instead of any other kind of farm animal banks? In Scotland and Northern England, a kind of Middle Ages earthenware container called pygg. Today we fill our piggs, or piggy banks, with coins. This is part of a complete...
Catherine from Dallas asks about I don’t cotton to, meaning something isn’t to one’s taste or that someone doesn’t get along with it. The expression is often heard as Southern US English, but the verb cotton goes back hundreds of years in England...
Andy from San Diego wonders why his students object when he pronounces bury with the vowel of jury or fury, rather than like berry. The word comes from Old English byrgan, and its modern spelling and pronunciation reflect different regional paths in...
A Texas nurse says she’s often teased about her last name, which happens to be “Newby.” She wonders if she should change it and how long the term newbie has been around. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of...
Grant shares another weather-related word from Britain: parky. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Parky” Martha, if we were in the UK and it was cold and invigorating outside, what would we call it? Brisk? Well, parky. P...