Jill from Maryville, Missouri, and her 11-year-old son Ryan are wondering about the phrases I have a hankering to do something and I’m fixing to do something. Growing up in East Central Nebraska, Jill heard family and friends use them synonymously...
A librarian opens a book and finds a mysterious invitation scribbled on the back of a business card. Another discovers a child’s letter to the Tooth Fairy, tucked into a book decades ago. What stories are left untold by these forgotten...
A woman in Lincoln, Nebraska, says her father, a Missouri cattleman, would answer the question How are you? by replying Couldn’t be better with less in all my life! This is part of a complete episode.
Asthenosphere, a geologist’s term for the molten layer beneath the earth’s crust, sparks a journey that stretches all the way from ancient Greece to the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Plus: What the heck is a dogberg? It’s when...
When a teenager went a week without talking as part of a school project, he noticed a surprising side effect: Instead of rehearsing a response to what other people were saying to him, he was focused on listening — and feeling smarter as a result...
How do you pronounce Missouri? Is it /miz-URR-ee/ or /miz-URR-uh/? There are actually four distinct pronunciations of this word. Linguist Donald Lance of the University of Missouri-Columbia studied the history of this name extensively and found that...
