Michael in Morgantown, Kentucky, is pondering his grandfather’s phrase He fotched a heave and catched a fall meaning someone “made a quick bodily movement and fell.” Fotched is a dialectal past tense of fetch. This is part of a complete episode...
Jane in Monticello, Florida, asks about nairn in sentences such as I don’t want nairn, meaning “I don’t want any.” The word is usually spelled nairn and is a contraction of never a one, and related to nary. It has been used for hundreds of years...