Monica in Burlington, Vermont, understood right away when a friend said her day got kerfunkulated. Words such as thingamajiggy, doohickey, whatchamacallit, and dumaflache work as placeholders, filling a gap when speakers do not need, or do not want...
Accent imitation can be part of ordinary human mimicry, the same impulse behind matching someone’s cadence, posture, or gestures. Sarah, who lives in Santa Fe and is temporarily in Philadelphia, finds herself reproducing the accent of a coworker...
A listener from Fairfield, Connecticut, wonders why she changes her accent and diction when family members from the Middle East are in town. Truth it, everyone does this. It’s a matter of imitating those around us in order to make ourselves...
