Jill from Greenville, South Carolina, wants to know why pickle automatically means “pickled cucumber,” as opposed to other pickled vegetables, such as onions and carrots. The answer has to do with prototypicality, the cultural agreement that one...
Mackenzie from Green Bay, Wisconsin, learned the word agita from a friend in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. She uses it to refer to “that heavy, sluggish feeling one gets after eating too much,” the feeling some call the meat sweats. The word agita comes...
Why does the term vegetarian cause so much confusion? Some people assume it means avoiding red meat but still eating chicken. And is there a term for a vegetarian who also eats fish and poultry? Plus, screwball comedies from the 1930s mix slapstick...
Ilima in Vancouver, Canada, reports not everyone understands when she tells them she’s vegetarian. Some people assume, for example, that she doesn’t eat red meat but may enjoy chicken. Part of the issue may involve what linguists call prototype...
Does language acquisition correspond with being ambidextrous? A woman notices her polyglot husband takes notes with his right hand for certain languages, then switches to his left for other ones. And: What’s the difference between an orchard...
When there’s no evening meal planned at home, what do you call that scramble to cobble together your own dinner? Some people apply acronyms like YOYO — “you’re on your own” — or CORN, for “Clean Out your Refrigerator...