When David from Warren County, Indiana, visited relatives in Virginia, he heard about an inebriated man who was said to have entered a church and caused a ruckus while sworpin’ down the aisle. In Appalachia, the verb sworp, also spelled swarp...
Gary in Denton, Texas, is looking for a word for the pout that precedes a baby’s wail. The Germans have a word for that: schippchen, which means “little shovel” and refers to the shape of that wet, protruding lower lip. This is...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski’s brain teaser involves puzzling out clues to words beginning with de-. For example: “Hey, how can our team play baseball when somebody has quite literally stolen second?” This is part of a complete episode...
A caller from coastal North Carolina says that in her part of the country, people use the word mommicked to mean flustered or deeply frustrated. It derives from mammock, which means to tear or muddle, and was used that way in Shakespeare’s...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski’s puzzle takes the definition of a word, and then alphabetizes all the words in the definition. For example, the definition of one familiar noun consists of the following words, but not in alphabetical order: “and...
A woman in Hudson, New York, says her boyfriend, who grew up on Long Island, uses the expression call out sick, meaning “to phone an employer to say you’re not coming to work because you’re ill.” But she uses the phrase call...