Why is boxing called the sweet science when it’s obviously such a bruising sport? Also, a mother of five is baffled when her Gen Z kids use words she thought she knew. For example, they call sweatshirts sweaters, and declare that’s so aesthetic...
Do you refer to nighttime sleepwear as jammies, jommies, or something else? A Nashville, Tennessee, woman says that her family referred to pajamas as jommies, while her husband’s family always called them jammies. Although jammies is the far more...
Barbara Kingsolver’s book Demon Copperhead is a retelling of Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield set in today’s Appalachia. Martha shares memories of a long-ago visit to Kingsolver’s family farm in Virginia, where they...
Ty in Nashville, Tennessee, has fond memories of his dad handing him what he called folding money. This term simply refers to bills, rather than coins. Other versions include folding dough, folding stuff, folding matter, folding green, folding...
Why does it seem that more and more people start responses to a question with the word so? After hearing our discussion about sentence-initial so, a Nashville, Tennessee, churchgoer calls to say that he often hears something similar at the beginning...
kibber n.— «As thousands of singers converge on Nashville for an international convention of barbershop harmony music, the old-fashioned music style is facing discord among its fans.…The signature sound of four unaccompanied male...

