A moving visit to the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama, and the nearby Freedom Monument Sculpture Park there on the banks of the Alabama River, prompts a Massachusetts woman to reflect on the history of slavery in the...
Rosalind from Montgomery, Alabama, says her mother used to scold her for acting like a starnadle fool. The more common version of this term is starnated fool, a term that appears particular to Black English, and appears in the work of such writers...
A trip to Montgomery, Alabama, to visit The Legacy Museum chronicling the African-American experience, the Rosa Parks Museum at Troy University, and the profoundly moving National Memorial for Peace and Justice prompts Martha to delve into the...
Mary Bell from Montgomery, Alabama, works in a doctor’s office where a hectic backlog of patients and appointments might elicit colleagues to say “We’re slammin’” or “We’re slammed.” The usage is familiar in restaurants and catering, where getting...
What’s in YOUR spice rack? Say you’re cooking up a pot of chili, and you need to add more of that warm, earthy, powdered spice. Do you reach for a bottle of KOO-min? KYOO-min? Or are you going to add KUMM-in? The pronunciation given in dictionaries...
When you think about it, the saying “I’m as old as my tongue and a little bit older than my teeth” makes a good deal of sense. It goes all the way back to the 18th century and Jonathan Swift’s Polite Conversation. This is part of a complete episode...

