Diana in Duncanville, Texas, notes a difference between British English and American English. In the United States, it’s common to say I am sitting down or He was sitting there or We were sitting there, but increasingly she hears people from...
Nicole in Indianapolis, Indiana, has a long-running dispute with her British husband about how to pronounce the word buoy. He says it’s pronounced BOY, like buoyant, and she insists it’s BOO-ee — a difference that reflects their...
Emma in Texas has a dispute with her dad over the pronunciation of the word oil. The Linguistic Atlas of the Gulf States records no fewer than eight different pronunciations of this word. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of...
Maribel in Montgomery, Alabama, reached for to boot after grumbling over a crossword clue, assistance in Alabama, whose answer was hep. In to boot, the boot isn’t footwear. It goes back to Old English bot, meaning an advantage or a remedy, so...
The punk band Sacred Cash Cow in Carolina Beach, North Carolina, is planning a tribute to another local band that’s breaking up, so they called to ask how to pronounce homage. Usually, if you’re paying homage to something (using the...
The scientific name for that part of a fowl otherwise known as the pope’s nose or the bishop’s nose is uropygium. The Greek root of this word, pyge, meaning “rump,” is also found in the English adjectives callipygian, which...