Rolling in the deep in Adele’s song builds on the slang expression roll deep, meaning to have loyal friends around you, people who have your back. In a Rolling Stone interview from February 2011, Adele traced the phrase to British slang, and the...
Our Quiz Guy John Chaneski has a game of aptronyms for people whose names fit certain locations or conditions. For example, a guy hanging onto a wall might be named Art. Or what do you call a woman between two buildings? Ally! This is part of a...
The increasingly musty expression like a broken record has caused some confusion among digital natives who’ve heard of broken records only in terms of sports! This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Like A Broken Record”...
What does cheeky mean? How about the words twee and naff? A British ex-pat says she finds it hard to convey the nuances of these adjectives to her American friends. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “British Terms” Hi...
Hellooooo, nurse! We have two recent brand-new episodes to share, plus some language news, along with a bit about what’s going on with us. First, on the show this past weekend we talked about eponyms, jo-jo potatoes, dog breed mashups, the...
Gina in Dallas wonders where her Louisiana family got croaker, their slang term for a $100 bill. The evidence is scant, but known examples point mostly to Louisiana, and standard dictionaries apparently do not include this sense. One plausible...