In place of pardon or excuse me, it’s common to hear a Texan or a Southerner say, “Do what?” Variations include “What now?”, “Do how?”, and “Do which?” This is part of a complete episode.
Is there a word you keep having to look up in the dictionary, no matter how many times you’ve looked it up before? Maybe it’s time for a mnemonic device. And: a listener shares a letter from Kurt Vonnegut himself, with some reassuring...
Not bad-which, like many phrases, sounds cool when you say it with an English accent-is an example of litotes, or an understatement used for effect. This is part of a complete episode.
If you’ve had enough to eat, you might say you’ve had gracious plenty. This expression goes back to the early 1800s, and serves the same purpose as saying you’re sufficiently suffonsified or you’ve had an elegant sufficiency...
Is the expression right on! just an outdated relic of hippie talk, or is it making a comeback? The Journal of American Folklore traces it back to at least 1911, but it gained traction among African-Americans and hippies in the ’60s and ’70s, and now...
Ever been on an airplane when an infant spits the dummy? This Australian slang expression, meaning to throw a fit, comes from the Aussies use of the word dummy to mean pacifier or binky. This is part of a complete episode.