Rose in Lebanon, Virginia recalls a phrase passed down from her great-grandmother: The night before the first day of school, parents would come into the children’s bedroom and say in a singsong voice: School butter, school butter. This...
An upscuddle, also spelled upscuttle, is defined in both the Dictionary of American Regional English and the Dictionary of Southern Appalachian English (Bookshop|Amazon) as a type of quarrel. A 1913 reference uses the term this way: “If they...
Katie in Everett, Washington, is curious about the expression If ifs and ands were pots and pans, there’d be no need for tinkers. What is a tinker? She heard this phrase on the television series The Gilded Age, in response to a character who...
Malamute, kayak, and parka are just some of the words that have found their way into English from the language of indigenous people in northern climes. • In the 1970s, some scientists argued that two quarks should be called truth and beauty. • The...
Sean, who is originally from Ireland, wonders if the term narrowback, which usually refers to second- or third-generation Irish-Americans, is considered a slur against the Irish. He also references an earlier conversation of ours about the term...
The English word slob, denoting “an untidy, sloppy, or lazy person,” derives from the Irish Gaelic word slab, which means “mud.” This is part of a complete episode.