Students in New England might refer to playing hooky from school as bunking, or bunking off. Jonathon Green’s Dictionary of Slang traces the term back to the 1840s in the British Isles. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of...
A recent study found that some names crop up more frequently than others in certain professions. The name William is especially common among attorneys–and graphic designers include a higher-than-average number of Jessicas. Plus, picturesque...
Carriage, cart, wagon, buggy — how do you refer to that giant basket on wheels you push around the grocery store? As the Harvard Dialect Survey shows, the answer depends on what part of the United States you’re from. See the big Facebook...
Reed in Clintonville, Wisconsin, has long insisted that groceries should have an s sound in the middle, while his Montana-raised wife uses sh, as if it were grosheries. Both pronunciations are widespread. Many usage authorities prefer the s...
Spleeny means hypersensitive, squeamish, or hypochondriacal, and it’s chiefly associated with New England. Jean, now in northern Michigan, grew up in Maine hearing it when she flinched from things like splinters, then discovered elsewhere that the...
Back when George W. Bush was a student at a New England prep school, he took to the thesaurus to impress a teacher, and wound up using a synonym for the wrong meaning for tear. Hence, the telltale phrase lacerates falling from my eyes wound up in...