A Carmel, Indiana, teacher is puzzled to hear younger colleagues pronounce the words kitten and mitten as KIH-un and MIH-un, with a noticeable break between the syllables. Linguist David Eddington of Brigham Young University reports that this...
An Indianapolis, Indiana, teacher and his class wonder about the origin of whistling in the dark, which means “to put on a brave face in a scary situation.” As it happens, the teacher’s band, The Knollwood Boys, recorded a song by...
A historian in Indianapolis, Indiana, says a World War II-era letter from her father to her mother refers to running a sandy. It’s a phrase that derives from poker and the act of sandbagging, a kind of bluffing of an opponent. This is part of...
An Indianapolis, Indiana, listener says that his mother-in-law was asked by a child where she was going, would jokingly sing that she was “going to the Turkey trot trot trot, across the lot, lot, lot, feeling fine, fine, fine until...
A Chicago-area listener wonders: When dictionaries go from print to online, are any words removed? What’s the best print dictionary to replace the old one on her dictionary stand? For more about dictionaries and their history, Grant recommends...
What’s the meaning of the word raunchy? A woman in Indianapolis, Indiana, thinks it means something bawdy or ribald, but to her husband’s family the word can mean “icky” or “unpleasant.” She learned this when one...