Karen in Memphis, Tennessee, says that when she looks disheveled or otherwise unfashionable, her Canadian mother says that she looks like a rig and a half. In Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, and Labrador, Canada, the word rig means “an eccentric, odd, or...
Lois in Newfoundland, Canada, asks about the phrase pain in the pinny, meaning “stomach discomfort.” Pain in the pinny, or more commonly pain under the pinny, refers to a pain under one’s pinafore, or apron, the word pinafore originally denoting a...
In their article “My Mother, Whenever She passed Away, She Had Pneumonia: The History and Functions of whenever,” Michael Montgomery and John Kirk discuss the “punctual” whenever, a vestige of Scots-Irish usage heard in much of the Southern United...
The vast majority of young students at Oxford Spires Academy in England are refugees and economic migrants. According to teacher Kate Clanchy, this mixture of cultures and languages creates something magical, including some remarkable poetry in...
Tim in Unadilla, New York, says his grandmother used to say It’s a great life if you don’t weaken. For some reason, in 1914 this catchphrase exploded on both sides of the Atlantic. Other versions: It’s a gay life if you don’t weaken and It’s a good...
She sells seashells by the seashore. The shells she sells are seashells I’m sure, so if she sells seashells on the seashore, then I’m sure she sells seashore shells. Some claim that this tongue twister is about the early life of 19th-century English...
