Is there such a thing as a “neutral” accent, and if so what does it sound like? And that quirk in the way southern Californians talk about freeways. They’ll say things like take the 405 and get on the 8. Why the definite article...
Rachel in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, wonders: Why do some longtime married couples refer to each other as Mother and Father? This is part of a complete episode.
Samantha, a Latin teacher in Cincinnati, Ohio, is curious about why some people say bread and butter after two people walking together pass by on either side of an object in their path or try to avoid being split. (An example occurs in a 1960...
Gossip goes by many names: the poop, the scoop, the lowdown, the dope, the scuttlebutt, the 411, the grapes, the gore, and hot tea. Plus, John Donne’s love poems are among the greatest in the English language, even as they’re famously...
An Ohio listener reports that when her toddler daughter used to ask for what she called LMNOPs. It took a while for their family to realize she wanted M&M’s candy. She also had her own word go-dogs for “hot dogs,” and her...
What kind of book do people ask for most often in prison? Romance novels? No. The Bible? No. The most requested books by far are … dictionaries! A number of volunteer organizations gather and distribute used dictionaries to help inmates with...