A question from a listener on the A Way with Words Facebook page has Martha musing about the entomological and etymological connections between the word pupil and the pupal stage of an insect’s life.
Need a word for the place on your back that you can’t reach to scratch? Martha has it for you. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Acnestis” If you’re following us on Twitter, you may remember a word that we mentioned recently. It...
Humorist Roy Blount Jr. stops by to try his hand at a slang quiz specifically about Southernisms.
If a restaurant menu states, “We cook off our potatoes,” what in the heck does that mean? A truck driver who encountered such an announcement at a roadside cafe is still puzzling over what it means to “cook off” a tuber. He phones in to hash it out.
No, it’s not the neurological effect of spending too much time researching odd new terms. Slang jang is a tongue-tickling sauce found in East Texas. For more about slang jang, including recipes, check out etymologist Barry Popik’s site. Transcript...
Does your family have a word for the cardboard tube left over from a roll of toilet paper? A caller says his family refers to them Oh-ah, Oh-ahs. Turns out many families have their own terms for them, including drit-drit, dawda dawda, hoo-hoo, to...