A listener in Cambridge, Wisconsin, says her mother, who is of Irish descent, used to tell her children to wash their hair so it wouldn’t be streely. This word derives from Irish for “unkempt,” and perhaps ultimately from a Gaelic...
A woman who grew up in south central Minnesota grew up using the phrase too yet, which can have various meanings at the end of a sentence, usually with some negative sense. An article by Peter Veltman in American Speech suggests that the tag too yet...
Growing up in Jamaica, a woman used to hear her fashion-designer mother invoke this phrase to indicate that something was good enough, even if it was flawed: “A man on a galloping horse wouldn’t see it.” Variations include...
A Fort Worth, Texas, couple disagrees about how to pronounce the word gymnast, but both JIM-nist and the more evenly stressed JIM-NAST are fine. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Pronouncing Gymnast” Hello, you have A...
The mealtime admonition “someone has to finish this up so the sun shines tomorrow” comes from a German saying that goes back at least 150 years. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “So the Sun Shines Tomorrow” Hello, you...
Finns say their word sisu meaning “guts” or “fortitude” characterizes their national identity. Does your culture have such a word, like the Portuguese term saudade, perhaps? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of...