Some people proudly embrace the label cancer survivor, while others feel that’s not quite the right word. Is there a better term for someone who’s battled cancer? Writers and listeners share the best sentence they’ve read all day...
The term Melungeon, applied to a group of people in Southeastern Appalachia marked by swarthy skin and dark eyes, has been used disparagingly in the past. But Melungeons themselves reclaimed that name in the 1960s. The Melungeon Heritage website...
What’s the origin of the phrase “Lord willing and the creek don’t rise”? It has to do with travel and farming and nothing whatsoever to do with Native Americans. Back when wagons rode on low gravel roads, you couldn’t...
Daniel, just outside Penetanguishene, Ontario, grew up in a family with Oklahoma Cherokee ties and heard his grandfather call himself Black Dutch, apparently to deny Native ancestry in a racist setting. The term is a knotty racial descriptor...
An Indianapolis woman vaguely remembers that there was a term for the Mohawk Indians who worked on the high beams and girders of some of this country’s most famous construction projects. The word she wants: skywalkers. High Steel is the...
Greetings, oh esteemed listeners. This is another newsletter from A Way with Words. On the air this past weekend, we talked a bit about giving nicknames to inanimate objects, druthers, Hispanic vs. Latino, stingaree, and people who can't quite...