A caller named Emily from Fishers, Indiana, wondered about nebby, a word she uses to mean picky and that her Michigan friends use to mean gossipy. In Western Pennsylvania, where the word is especially common, nebby means nosy or snooping, and it...
Why, when someone’s unhappy about something, do we say someone’s nose is out of joint or out of socket? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Nose Out of Joint” Hello, you have A Way with Words. Oh, this is Scott...
Need a synonym for “nose”? Try this handy word from a 1904 dialect dictionary: sneeze-horn. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Sneeze-Horn” My new favorite term today anyway is sneeze horn. What is a sneeze...
Bathroom walls, missing graffiti, and social media. Where have all the cute quips on bathroom stalls gone? We wonder about the apparent decline of restroom graffiti. Are people saving their witticisms for Twitter and Facebook? And: If...
The idiom “to cut off your nose to spite your face” has been attributed to a Medieval nun who described women cutting off their noses to look unattractive and thus preserve their chastity. Whether that story is true, cutting off...
Can a grenache really taste like strawberries, rhubarb, hints of leather and dutch cocoa, all over the course of a long swig? While it may sound ridiculous, it does pose the challenge: how would you describe a flavor? It’s not easy to talk...