Martha reads Jessica Goodfellow’s poem about the sound of water, “Chance of Precipitation,” which first appeared in the Beloit Poetry Journal. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “”Chance of...
Sharing a secret language. Did you ever speak in gibberish with a childhood pal, adding extra syllables to words so the adults couldn’t understand what you were saying? Such wordplay isn’t just for kids—and it’s not just limited to...
Gibberish and its variants aren’t just for goofy teens in the wayback of the station wagon. As Jessica Weiss notes in Schwa Fire, the online magazine about language, people all over the world speak various forms of it. Her article features...
Chester drawers is a common reshaping of chest of drawers, especially when the furniture name has been learned by ear rather than from print. Jessica in Madison, Wisconsin, grew up near St. Louis and thought it might simply be a style name, like...
brown town n.— «Colchester has been labelled “brown town” by local addicts because of how easy it is to get hold of heroin.» —“ Heroin ‘cheaper than a night out’” by Richard Martin, Jessica Creighton BBC...
liphooping n.— «Tracy Doreen Dietzel […] will close the night with a short performance piece involving lip-synching and hula hooping, something she refers to as liphooping.» —“The abridged guide to Spring Gallery...