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The Wheels Came Off

A listener named Tami contacted the show by WhatsApp to say that whenever someone would be talking about a subject that nobody else knew anything about, her father-in-law would respond with I had one of those, but the wheels came off. This is part...

Dog Jangle

After our conversation about various names for a television remote control, a listener emailed to say that early remote controls produced an audible tone that activated the TV channel changer and volume, and whenever his dogs Lupe and Bubba stood up...

Rutchy and Squirming

When a listener from Buffalo, New York, was a child, she was told to stop being so rutschy, or in other words, to stop being so “fidgety.” Rutsch, meaning “to squirm,” and its variants, which include rooch and roosh, come...

Toey, an Australianism

Our discussion about finding a word that means both nervous but excited prompted several suggestions from listeners. A listener in Melbourne, Australia, contributed another term used in his part of the world: toey. If you’re toey, you’re...