Janet calls from Aiken, South Carolina, to say that her father used to ask Have you dressed your bed? meaning “Have you made your bed?” The word dress likely derives from Latin dirigere, meaning “to straighten” or “to...
A caller named Emily from Fishers, Indiana, wondered about nebby, a word she uses to mean picky and that her Michigan friends use to mean gossipy. In Western Pennsylvania, where the word is especially common, nebby means nosy or snooping, and it...