One definition of a shivaree is “a compliment extended to every married couple made up of beating tin pans, blowing horns, ringing cowbells, playing horse fiddles, caterwauling, and in fine, the use of every disagreeable sound to make the...
Have you ever done something you regretted, and instinctively reached for the “undo” function, despite being nowhere near a computer? Maybe a page in your book accidentally turns and you reach for the browser’s back button? A...
A Hoosier says her friends tease her about the way she says doofitty when she can’t think of the right word for something. Grant and Martha discuss the long list of linguistic placeholders, including whatchamacallit, doodad, deely-bobber...
Fellow wordivas and wordudes, This week on A Way with Words we start a brand-new season! To celebrate, we noodled with anagrams, including the one in the title of this episode. Listen here. Also on the show: A New York City schoolteacher asks...
ticket house n.— «Many Hoosier Lottery games are patterned after games that have been played in pea-shake houses for years, such as selecting winning combinations of three or four numbers, pull tabs and tickets. People pay 2 cents and...
pea-shake n.— «Many Hoosier Lottery games are patterned after games that have been played in pea-shake houses for years, such as selecting winning combinations of three or four numbers, pull tabs and tickets. People pay 2 cents and more...