It’s been a while since Moon Unit Zappa and the Valley Girl craze slipped out of the popular eye, which is likely why the sarcastic quip, “I’m so sure!” had one listener tripped up. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Valley Girl...
“Whistling girls and cackling hens always come to some bad end,” said people in the olden days regarding transgressive women. A variation on this saying pops up in a 1911 book called Folk-Lore of Women by one Reverend Thomas Thiselton-Dyer. This is...
The slang ratchet has more than one edge. A ratchet party may be bumpin’ or off the hook, but calling a person or situation ratchet is usually derogatory, closer to hot mess, messed up, or not up to someone’s standards. The term appears in student...
From a certain point of view, re-running episodes is like putting on a favorite pair of jeans. But this past weekend we pulled on our favorite tutus and re-aired “Why Do Girls Wear Pink?” It’s the one where Grant recites a few lines of Sir Mix-A-Lot...
Jennifer from Racine, Wisconsin, uses hooptie — also spelled hoopty or hoopdee — for her aging 1988 Mazda RX-7 convertible, despite her husband’s doubts that the word is real. The slang dates at least to the 1960s, when it could simply mean a car or...
Why is pink a girl color and blue a boy color? In the 19th Century, pink used to be associated with boys, since it was a stronger, more decided color. Blue, on the other hand, was regarded as a girls’ color, because it was considered dainty. It...

