Mary, who grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana, says her Illinois-born husband calls a tape measure a billy, a usage he learned from his father, who grew up in Canton, Illinois. English has other slangy uses of billy for long metal objects, including a...
An Omaha, Nebraska, woman wonders about an Italian food that’s like a stuffed, pizza-size calzone stuffed with potatoes and spinach, or meat, or broccoli. She’s seen it spelled several ways, including goodierooni, goudarooni, and...
The piece of playground equipment you slide down goes by several different names, depending on which part of the U.S. you’re from: slide, sliding board, sliding plank, and sliding pond. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of...
A wingnut is a handy, stabilizing piece of hardware. So why is it a pejorative term for those of a certain political persuasion? Also, is there something wrong with the phrase committed suicide? Some say that the word commit is a painful reminder...
An Omaha, Nebraska man wonders about starting a sentence with the word anymore, meaning “nowadays.” Linguists refer to this usage as positive anymore, which is common in much of the Midwest and stems from Scots-Irish syntax. This is part...
If you complain that something went down your Sunday throat you mean that it went into your windpipe. Saying that something goes down your Sunday throat may derive from the fact that just as Sunday is a special day of the week in some religions...