“Redd up the table!” A California listener says he remembers hearing that all the time when growing up in Iowa, but now that he’s on the West Coast, no one has any idea what he’s talking about. You’ll sometimes see it spelled “red up.”This is part...
Stories From The Onion In this week’s episode, Martha and Grant discuss not-to-be-believed articles about language from the satirical newspaper The Onion, including one headlined “Underfunded Schools Forced to Cut Past Tense from Language Programs...
Really??? Really! A college student in Provo, Utah, says he’s hearing this expression of sarcastic incredulity more and more— even catching himself saying this to his cellphone when it dropped a call. He suspects it comes from Saturday Night Live...
We recommend books that make great gifts for language lovers, talk about footwear called go-aheads, and look further into going commando. Also, was the 2008 election a historic event or an historic event?
Feeling fankled? It’s a Scots English word that means “messed up” or “confused.” In this week’s episode, Grant and Martha also discuss a whole litter of synonyms for dust bunny, a slew of different terms for the piece of playground equipment you...
Barbie n.— «Now, the Linux community has long enjoyed the insights of technically minded geeks, many of whom count the command line among their best friends. We would be remiss not to alert our readers, however, to a small—but rapidly...
