When somebody sneezes, we say bless you or gesundheit. But suppose that person coughs. Are you supposed to say something — or are they? Plus, Mexican standoffs, gracious plenty, linguistic false friends, southpaw vs. northpaw, the slang of rabbit...
A listener from Fairfield, Connecticut, wonders why she changes her accent and diction when family members from the Middle East are in town. Truth it, everyone does this. It’s a matter of imitating those around us in order to make ourselves feel...
Ben Schott’s language blog Schott’s Vocab on the New York Times website held a contest for modern age greeting cards called Get Web Soon. Among the favorites: “Heartfelt condolences on the loss of your data” and “Congratulations on your relationship...
On an earlier show, Martha mentioned the Middle Eastern detergent called Barf. Martha shares email from listeners who say that although the word spelled the same as English barf, the Farsi pronunciation is somewhat different. This is part of a...
Martha shares listener email about linguistic “false friends,” those perplexing words in other languages that look like English words, but mean something completely different. A case in point is the detergent popular in the Middle East called...
hot stain n.— «Because there are what scientists call “hot stains’”…the parts of the Earth now running out of potable water. Hot stains include northern China, large areas of Asia and Africa, the Middle East, Australia, the U.S. Midwest and...