Demonyms are the words for people from particular places, and Mike in New York has been turning them into a family road-trip game for decades. Some are predictable, such as New Yorker or Californian, but local forms and old associations quickly...
If you’re on vacation, watch out for nosebaggers. This mid-19th century slang term refers to tourists who go to resort areas for the day but bring their own provisions and don’t contribute to the local economy. A modern nosebagger might...
Why are some American place names pronounced differently than the famous place they were named after? Why is Cairo, Ill., pronounced “KAY-roh”? Why do Midwesterners pronounce Versailles as “Ver-SALES” and the New Madrid Fault...
A new transplant to Dallas wants to assimilate into the Texan way of speaking without offending the locals or forcing any new vocabulary. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Texas Talk” Hi, you have A Way with Words. Good...
Residents of Maine are called “Mainers,” people in Texas are “Texans,” those in Wisconsin are “Wisconsinites,” and people in Phoenix are … “Phoenicians”? Grant and Martha explain that there are...
A San Diego caller wonders about the expression a-gogo, as in the name of a local restaurant, Hash House A Go Go. Where’d it come from? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “A-GoGo” Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hi...