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 tree with...
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 Welcome Viewers...
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 linguist...
Takk for sist is a Norwegian greeting that means “thanks for the last time,” which conveys the idea that the speaker is pleased to see the person again. Another Norwegian slang phrase translates literally as “to be in the middle of the butter’s...
A San Diego, California, man says a colleague jokingly greets him with “What’s cookin’ good lookin’?” It’s a version of a question popularized by a Hank Williams song that goes “Hey, good-lookin’, whatcha got cookin’?” This greeting goes back to at...
The hell in hello has nothing to do with the Devil’s abode. The word is related to similar shouts of greeting, such as hallo or halloa. Several languages have similar exclamations, such as Swedish hej, which sounds like English hey. This is part of...