David from Matthews, North Carolina, grew up using the term cheese toastie for a type of grilled cheese sandwich. Cheese toasties are familiar in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, particularly around the cities of Decatur and Springfield. In the UK...
If you mistype something, that’s a typo. But what do you call it when your voice-to-text program mistypes as you’re dictating? Is that a mico, as in microphone? Plus, the word sycophant has a long and surprising history that goes all the way back to...
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 which the -ed...
That familiar comfort food most often called a “grilled cheese” goes by a few other names, including “cheese toastie” and “cheesewich,” the latter of which is a trademarked name. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Cheesewiches”...
Good news if you’ve wondered about a word for recognizable images composed of random visual stimuli—that image of Elvis in your grilled-cheese sandwich, for example. It’s pareidolia. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Pareidolia” I...