A middle-schooler in Waukesha, Wisconsin, wonders why the word island contains the letter S, and why is it pronounced with a long I and no S sound? In Old English, this word for dry land surrounded by water was igland, coming from words that mean...
The adjective buccal refers to “pertaining to the cheek,” as in a buccal muscle of the face. The Latin word for “cheek” bucca also led to Latin buccula, “the cheek strap of a metal helmet,” then to a...
An ort is a small bite of food left on one’s dinner plate. Also known as the manners bit or manners piece, because some people consider it polite for guests to leave that last bite, which suggests that the host provided enough for everyone to...
Holly from Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, remembers her grandmother loading family dinners with pepper and saying they wouldn’t get the pip. The pepper appears to be a folk-remedy flourish, not part of the word’s origin. The pip, also the pips, has...
Carl in Vancouver, British Columbia, wonders if it’s incorrect to use the word meat to denote the edible part of an egg. Meat can indeed be used to denote the edible part of a nut, a fruit, or an egg. In Middle English, the word meat referred...
JJ spent much of his life in Rhode Island but now lives in Racine, Wisconsin, which has led to some hilarious misunderstandings involving the different dialects of those regions. For one thing, his neighbors in the Midwest made certain assumptions...