Mackenzie from Green Bay, Wisconsin, learned the word agita from a friend in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. She uses it to refer to “that heavy, sluggish feeling one gets after eating too much,” the feeling some call the meat sweats. The word agita comes...
In New York and northern New Jersey, a children’s playground slide was once commonly known as sliding pond or sliding pon. The terms reflect the considerable influence of Dutch settlement in that area, the Dutch word baan meaning a “path” and...
Sean in Oneonta, New York, says that when he was growing up in New Jersey, his family would pile in the car and set off on a surprise adventure, whether a short distance or long, and the kids would be told only that they were going on Buxtehude...
A Kentuckian says he always described gunning a car’s engine to make the vehicle spin in a circle as cutting doughnuts or cutting donuts, but when visiting South Dakota, he heard the same thing described as spinning cookies. This pastime goes by...
Polly from Issaquah, Washington, grew up in Washington, D.C., where she and her family used the term food store to mean “grocery store.” However, a friend from the Midwest teases her about this. Does anyone else call a grocery store a food store...
Sarah from Haddonfield, New Jersey, wonders about the phrase Are you ready for Freddy? It’s a catchphrase that was part of a running gag in Al Capp’s long-running “Li’l Abner” comic strip, which ran in newspapers in the middle of the 20th century...
