Steven from San Antonio, Texas, seeks a word that means “the opposite of trauma.” Perhaps eustress, literally “good stress”? Or harmonization? Placid? Is there a better term for this? This is part of a complete episode...
Seven-year-old Everett from Tallahassee, Florida, wants to know why we refer to a scrape or other minor injury as a boo-boo. Such reduplication of words and syllables is common in baby talk used to soothe a child. Also, boo-boo sounds a little like...
A young woman wants a family-friendly way to describe a statement that’s fraudulent or bogus, but all the words she can think of sound old-fashioned. Is there a better term than malarkey, poppycock, or rubbish? Also, listeners step up to help...
We’ve spoken before about “It’ll be better when you’re married,” often used to console someone who just had a small scrape or cut. A Chicago-area listener wrote us to say that in such cases, her mom’s phrase was...
rinkrash n.— «It’s also a violent sport. The Roller Warriors’ website features the “Injury Archive,” a photo gallery of grotesque bruises, facial stitches, knee-surgery images and floor burns—commonly known as rinkrash...
monkey muscle n.— «The symptoms you describe are most likely the result of a tear in the one of the two heads of the main calf muscle—the gastrocnemius. This is also known as a “torn monkey muscle” injury, for reasons I don’t...