The word muckle means “grab, seize, or tackle and hold tight,” and it’s especially associated with New Hampshire, Maine, and parts of Massachusetts. Eric from Monroe, New Hampshire, says most people he’s talked with have never heard of it, but his...
In this bonus A Way with Words minicast, Martha and Grant step into the historic streets of Marblehead, Massachusetts, where the simple cry of “Down bucket!” could serve as a kind of local password. After they ponder that and other...
Meg in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, gets why the state highway department encourages drivers to use their blinkers when changing lanes, but placing a digital sign at the Sagamore Bridge that reads Use Ya Blinkah is, well, a lexical bridge too far. Meg’s...
Since the 13th century, the adjective wicked has meant “bad” or “evil.” So why do people in New England use wicked as an intensifying adverb to mean “very” or “extremely”? This is part of a complete...
The term skycap for workers who help with luggage at an airport was coined by analogy with redcap, a term for porters on trains who wore red caps. Skycap was the winning entry in a contest. Another contest, held in 1923, gave us the word scofflaw, a...
After our conversation about how to communicate an apology to another driver while on the road, Vasiliy in Waltham, Massachusetts, composed a poem about it. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “A Poem to Apologize to Other...
