In a 1968 list of Cheyenne High School slang that ran in newspapers around the United States, Clyde, written like the man’s name, meant one’s head or mind. The Wyoming students’ examples included Use your Clyde! and put it out of your Clyde...
Lisa lives in Columbia, South Carolina, but went to high school in Brockport, New York. There, a certain type of student was called a beeg or beeger. Such a classmate was likely a fan of Iron Maiden, wore their hair in a mullet, and smoked in the...
A high-schooler asks: Why do we say throw someone under the bus when we’re talking about an act of betrayal. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “”Throwing Someone Under the Bus” Has a Complicated History” Hello, you have A Way with...
We were invited to Lee High School in Huntsville, Alabama, to talk with students about slang. During our previous visit in 2018, we learned the apparently hyperlocal slang term forf meaning “to flake out” or “someone who fails to follow through.”...
Jackie from Cincinnati, Ohio, wonders about the idiom they look like the end of pea time, referring to someone who appeared disheveled or unkempt. The end of pea time, or the last of pea time, refers to the literal end of pea-growing season, when...
A listener leaves us a voicemail about a sign his high school science teacher posted in the classroom to encourage students to keep the noise down. It read “Laboratory — more of the first 5, less of the last 7.” As in more of the first five letters...