If you want to claim something—say, the front seat of a car or the last piece of cake—what do you say? Dibs? Boney? How about “I hosey that!”? The hosts talk about this New England expression, its possible origins, and its equivalent in...
Where in the world would you be likely to find sculch in your dooryard, or ask for just a dite of cream in your coffee? Martha has the answers in this minicast about some distinctive regional terms.
A woman from Cape Cod is looking for a polite word that means the current wife of my ex-husband. She’s thinking about cur-wife, but somehow that doesn’t quite work. Neither does the phrase “that poor woman.” The hosts try to...
hammer-in n.— «At a hammer-in held last Saturday at the home of New Bedford’s George Rebello, a couple dozen knife makers from across New England and New Jersey forged, hammered and shaped steel into handsome knives.…Rebello founded...
cloud street n.— «The cloud formations are all along the coastline. Cloud streets, as they are called, are rows of cumulus or cumulus-type clouds that are aligned parallel to the low-level wind.» —“NASA MODIS Image of the Day:...
ecuavolley n.— «What’s to blame for the moral rot? It’s not drug dealing or gang wars. In Danbury the vice, according to local officials and longtime residents, is volleyball. Specifically, “ecuavolley,” a form of the game so...