Tim from Jacksonville, Florida, has long been teased for saying milk more like melk and eggs with a vowel closer to ages. His mother’s South Carolina accent and his father’s Newfoundland accent may have contributed, and these pronunciations have...
Zooming down a snow-covered hill on a wooden structure with runners goes by many names across North America including sledding, sliding, sleighing, coasting, and tobogganing. In parts of the United States, it’s also called sleigh riding, and...
Vince in Norristown, Pennsylvania, is pondering whether the terms couch, sofa, and davenport are all regional terms for the same piece of heavy furniture. The short answer is that throughout the United States, the term couch is the most common...
Brian in Church Hill, Tennessee, asks about naming a blues-rock-country band Smackin’ Bejeebus, which echoes expressions such as “smack the bejeebus out of you” and “scare the bejeebus out of you.” Bejeebus is a playful variant of bejesus, also...
Why, when writing out an abbreviated name like NATO for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, don’t we use periods between the letters to form the acronym or initialism? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Periods in...
The term no-see-ums refers to those pesky gnats that come out in the heat and humidity and are so tiny they’re almost invisible. The term goes back at least as far as the 1830s, and is heard particularly in the Northeastern United States. This...