Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts: Stories and Recipes from Five Generations of Black Country Cooks (Bookshop|Amazon) is about the foodways and folkways passed down through five generations of a Black Appalachian family. The book, by novelist and...
Courtney in Anchorage, Alaska, and her teenage son disagree: Should that collection of music be called a mixtape or a mixed tape? The former is far more common, and reflects that linguistic process known as lenition or “softening,” in...
Kamela works as a nurse in Anchorage, Alaska. When she asked a patient how how he was doing post-surgery, the man responded with Well, I haven’t grown gills yet. It’s a jocular way of acknowledging that although he hadn’t recovered...
Keith in Valparaiso, Indiana, grew up hearing his mother call the refrigerator compartment the icebox, a term that isn’t just a family quirk. Before electric refrigerators became common, especially before the 1930s, an icebox was a wooden cabinet...
If two people are like five minutes of eleven, they’re close friends. The phrase reflects the idea of the position of a clock’s hands at that time. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “The Expression “Five Minutes of Eleven”...
Is saying “Yes, Ma’am” and “No, Sir” when addressing someone in conversation too formal or off-putting? Not if it’s clear that those niceties come naturally to you. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript...