Multiple modals, as in the phrase “I thought y’all may would have some more of them,” have their own logic and are well understood by many in the American South. The Database of Multiple Modals compiled by Paul Reed and Michael...
Cleave, dust, and screen are all words that can mean the opposite of themselves. You can cleave to a belief, meaning to “adhere closely,” but you can also separate things by cleaving them. Words that mean the opposite of themselves go by...
Yeah, no isn’t an oxymoron in miniature. Jade from San Diego notices friends using it before answers such as “we are not spending $50,” and linguists treat it as a discourse marker, a little conversational tool rather than ordinary yes plus ordinary...
Say you have a particularly rambunctious child. Okay, a little hellion. Is it proper to describe the little devil as a holy terror? Or might it be more correct and more logical to call him an unholy terror? A Los Angeles caller thinks it’s the...
A California caller is puzzled as to why the prefix un- seems to function in two entirely different ways in the terms undone and unmarried. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Conflicting Meanings of Prefix...
A caller from Down Under phones to say he’s annoyed when honorees declare they’re humbled by this or that award. He thinks it’s not only illogical, but smacks of insincerity. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of...