Tommy in Lexington, Kentucky, reports that when he was serving in the U.S. military in Vietnam he heard the expression Mox nix, meaning “I don’t care” or “It doesn’t matter.” It’s a version of a German es Macht nichts, or “It’s nothing.” This is...
When there’s no evening meal planned at home, what do you call that scramble to cobble together your own dinner? Some people apply acronyms like YOYO — “you’re on your own” — or CORN, for “Clean Out your Refrigerator...
Charlotte from Princeton, Kentucky, wonders: What’s the difference between a spider web and a cobweb? There’s a bit of semantic differentiation between the two: A cobweb is usually an old spider web, while a spider web that’s not...
Sherman from Harrodsburg, Kentucky, says her grandfather used to speak of accomplishing something physically challenging through main strength and awkwardness–in other words, through brute force and sheer determination. In the 1500s, English...
A Kentucky listener says her father often prefaced statements with the phrase I tell you what’s the truth. This regionalism appears in the Dictionary of Southern Appalachian English (Bookshop|Amazon). A shorter version is I’ll tell you...
A Kentuckian named Sheila moved out of state for several years, but now that she’s returned to work at Western Kentucky University, she finds that many students no longer seem to have a stereotypically “Southern” accent...