If you speak both German and Spanish, you may find yourself reaching for a German word instead of a Spanish one, and vice versa. This puzzling experience is so common among polyglots that linguists have a name for it. • The best writers create...
Tom in Tallahassee, Florida, wonders why he and his fellow buddies called the store on a ship the gedunk, also geedunk, and also applied the word to the sweets and other goodies they purchased there. As Paul Dickson notes in his book War Slang, some...
Greetings, earthlings. Here's another newsletter from A Way with Words! This past weekend's show was a repeat, although we tacked on a brand new call: what is the deal with bald-faced vs. bold-faced? Find out: Also discussed were...
A caller wonders about the origin of gedunk or geedunk, which means “ice cream” or “a snack bar” where you might buy sweets. This is part of a complete episode.
gedunk n.— «You possess one comic feature that is changing the habits of the nation. I refer to Harold Teen and his Gedunk sundae. I have two children, a boy and a girl, now of high school age, and I have spent many a painstaking hour...
gedunk n.— «Not once did the gedunked part sever its connection with the ungedunked part and fall geplatsch into the coffee.» —“A Line O’ Type Or Two” Chicago Daily Tribune Jan. 21, 1925. (source: Double-Tongued...