Alan in Columbia, South Carolina, grew up hearing his grandparents ask who wanted to go juking, meaning to ride around, shop a little, eat something, and hang out with no fixed plan. That family use is a tamer cousin of juke or jook, the word behind...
Is listening to an audiobook for a book club somehow “cheating”? Is there no substitute for engaging with the printed page, or do audiobooks adds a whole new dimension? Plus, a mocktail os an artisanal beverage without alcohol. Is there a more...
The boiled rice dish known as congee does congeal when cooled to make a kind of porridge, but those two words aren’t related. Congeal is related to French congelé, the past participle of French congeler, “to freeze.” Congeal and congeler share a...
A jook joint is a roadside establishment where all sorts of drinking, dancing, and gambling may occur. Zora Neale Hurston described them in her 1934 essay “Characteristics of Negro Expression,” and the term probably derives from a West African term...
