A fan of Bruce Springsteen’s song “Dancing in the Dark” called to say that she’s noticed the lyrics are awfully sad for such a peppy tune, and wonders if there’s a word for this phenomenon. Lyrical dissonance would do the...
An American who worked as an au pair in Italy found that children there didn’t seem to react so positively to fun sayings like, “No way, Jose” or “Ready, Freddie?” Yet some research suggests we’re primed to love...
A swinging song by Glenn Miller and His Orchestra called “I’ve Got a Gal in Kalamazoo” drops the line “What a gal, a real pipperoo.” A homeschooling family in Maine wonders just what a pipperoo is. For one, the suffix ...
A Latvian expression that translates as “Did a bear stomp on your ear?” is a more colorful, though no more kind, way to tell someone they have no ear for music. Also heard in Latvia is an idiom that translates as “You’re...
Writers and where they do their best creative work. A new book on Geoffrey Chaucer describes the dark, cramped, smelly room where he wrote his early work. Which raises the question: What kind of space do you need to produce your best writing...
Words like bae, bling bling and on fleek have all moved into the common vernacular at different points in the last 30 years, thanks in part to the prominence of African-American slang in music and pop culture. This is part of a complete episode...