Duane, who lives in New York City, says that his parents who are from the U.S. Virgin Islands use the term corotole to mean “clutter.” This term appears in The Virgin Islands Dictionary by Kareem Nelson-Hull (Bookshop|Amazon). It also...
A third-grade teacher from Michigan reports that one of her young students pronounced the word crayon as “crown.” There’s more than one regional variant in the United States, though. Others include “CRAY-ahn,”...
If you believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you is an English idiom suggesting that the listener is gullible. It’s widespread throughout the United States. On our Facebook group, listeners shared other versions, including one that...
Synanthropes are creatures that live and thrive close to humans but aren’t pets — animals such as pigeons, raccoons, and rats. Synanthrope comes from Greek words that mean “with” and “human,” and has been around since the 1940s. The Synanthrope...
In response to our conversation about language chosen for a tombstone, listeners share proposed epitaphs for themselves and others. If you just can’t get enough of epitaphs, you can browse lots of back issues of the scholarly journal Markers...
Paul in Dryden, New York, says when he lived in Tennessee, he knew that when someone began a sentence with Bless his heart, that phrase would usually be followed by the word but, plus a criticism of that person. Now that he’s living in New...