Heather in Fairbanks, Alaska, asks why historians and documentary narrators sometimes describe past events in the present tense. This use of the historical present is a storytelling convention that creates immediacy. The historical present can be...
In Charlotte, North Carolina, there’s a Street Avenue. In Fairbanks, Alaska, there’s a Yellowsnow Road. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Goodbye, Yellowsnow Road” Here are a couple of more street names. In Charlotte, North...
A listener in Fairbanks, Alaska, says her husband has long referred to her as a whippersnapper, insisting it’s a playful term of endearment. Whippersnapper goes back to the 17th century, when boys who didn’t own horses would strut around cracking...
Martha recently spoke at a fundraiser for radio station KUAC in Alaska. While there in Fairbanks, she explored the University of Alaska’s magnificent Museum of the North, and paid a visit to Running Reindeer Ranch, where she learned a lot about...
Sarah in Fairbanks, Alaska, has a term to add to our discussion about colloquial terms for traveling on foot, like shank’s mare, chevrolegs, and getting a ride with Pat and Charlie: taking the shoelace express. This is part of a complete episode...
Colleen from Fairbanks, Alaska, is pondering the word hangry, a portmanteau of hungry and angry, and applied to someone who’s irritable as the result of hunger. Although hangry has been around sincet at least the 1950s, it enjoyed a boost in...