A Indianapolis, Indiana, woman remembers that her Kentucky-born grandfather used to say that a lazy person wasn’t very work-brickle. The dialectal term work-brickle is a variant of work-brittle, which, in the late 19th century, described...
In the early 18th century, squirrels were popular pets in Britain and the American colonies. In fact, Benjamin Franklin once wrote a grand eulogy for a girl’s pet squirrel named “Mungo.” The adjective sciurine means...
Charlie Pierce of Devon, England, describes the UK tradition of wetting the baby’s head, a pub outing for a new or expectant father before the baby arrives. Friends buy the rounds, and the father-to-be is not supposed to pay for any of them. The...
In Cantabrigian tradition, a wooden spoon was jokingly awarded to low achievers in mathematics. That practice later extended to other types of competitions. It’s also key to a heartwarming story about a charitable organization that arose from...
The English language includes several words deriving from Arabic, such as coffee, sugar, and giraffe. Another is ghoul, which comes from an Arabic term for a “shapeshifting demon.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of...
Jennifer in San Antonio, Texas, wants a word for a shortcut that ends up taking longer than the regular route, after one of her driving detours forced her to turn around and retrace her way. The plain opposite is longcut, and another playful...