When Ana first arrived in the United States from Hungary, she was taken aback when someone greeted her with the idiomatic expression How’s it hanging?. She was also puzzled by the expression trim the tree meaning to “adorn a Christmas...
A native Dutch speaker who spent many years in Japan says he had to learn the hard way that when Americans greeted him with How are you?, they didn’t really want to know how he was. Such casual greetings that don’t require a factual or...
Larry from Sparks, Georgia, wonders why television announcers and newscasters say welcome back! after a commercial when he, the viewer, didn’t go anywhere. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Why Do Television Shows...
The German neologism Coronafussgruss literally translates as “Corona foot greeting,” a term for the socially distanced alternative to handshakes. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Coronafussgruss” We were...
It’s hard to imagine now, but there was a time when people disagreed over the best word to use when answering the telephone. Alexander Graham Bell, for example, advocated answering with Ahoy!, while Thomas Edison argued for Hello. As...
How did the town of What Cheer, Iowa, get its name? The word cheer was long used to indicate an emotional state of any kind, so asking someone, What cheer? was another way to say “How are you?” The greeting, What cheer, netop? is closely associated...