We’ve mentioned the word orts before. It means “leftovers,” but if you want another great word for leftovers or various little odds and ends, there’s always manavalins. That’s how Herman Melville spelled it, although...
An ort is a small bite of food left on one’s dinner plate. Also known as the manners bit or manners piece, because some people consider it polite for guests to leave that last bite, which suggests that the host provided enough for everyone to...
Listeners continue to weigh in on the topic of what to call those impromptu, free-for-all dinners at home where everyone just cobbles together their own dish with whatever leftovers or ingredients are handy. Frances writes from Bluffton, South...
Nick from San Antonio, Texas, grew up hearing his father call an improvised lunch of leftovers and pantry odds and ends tiffin. In Indian English, tiffin can mean a light meal, especially lunch, and also the stacked metal lunch container used to...
Sheree from Boerne, Texas, says her mother used to refer to leftovers as a duke’s mixture. The original Duke’s mixture was a loose, low-quality tobacco sold in a pouch by the same tobacco company that would later donate millions to the...
Amy from Ishpeming, Michigan, says her family’s idiolect includes the word grinslies, which they use to denote the sediment in the bottom of your coffee cup. The word orts is also a term for leftovers, and a dialectal term for the last little...