Melissa in Grand Prairie, Texas, hails from a family in New Jersey that refers to red pasta sauce with meat in it as gravy. Her family has Italian roots, and in their local dialect, the word for “sauce” can also be translated as...
Mike calls from Bloomsberg, Pennsylvania to ask about the word picayune, meaning “petty.” Why would a New Orleans newspaper call itself The Times-Picayune? The adjective picayune, meaning “trifling” or “insignificant,” derives from French picaillon...
Pirooting around can mean “whirling around,” as well as “prowling” or “nosing around.” This expression is most commonly heard in the American South and Southwest. Piroot is most likely a variant of pirouette and...
If someone’s “drunk as Cooter Brown,” they’re pretty darn intoxicated. The saying comes from the word cooter, meaning box turtle, and alludes to a turtle swimming around in its own drink. This is part of a complete episode...
An Indianapolis listener is curious about a saying his dad used to describe anything that’s excellent or the best of its kind: Just like New York. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Just like New York” Hello, you...
Words like bae, bling bling and on fleek have all moved into the common vernacular at different points in the last 30 years, thanks in part to the prominence of African-American slang in music and pop culture. This is part of a complete episode...