Kendall from Boone, North Carolina, says that particularly after Kendall had a challenging day, her mother would gently ask How’s your copperosity? meaning “How are you doing?” Copperosity is a playful variation of corporosity...
Brian in Harvest, Alabama, says his grandfather used to offer him a meat-filled biscuit he called hoomlabbas, supposedly eaten by cowboys in the Old West. Did his grandpa make up the word? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of...
In parts of the United States, the verb to build is used to mean prepare a food or beverage, so you might build a coffee or build a lemon pie. This use of to build appears in a lot of literature of the Old West. This is part of a complete episode...
A Norwegian slang phrase rendered in English as that’s totally Texas describes a wild, chaotic, or mixed-up situation, not usually aimed at a person. The image comes from the lawless Wild West of old movies and TV, where gunslingers, dusty towns...
How far back does cursing go? People have been using coarse language for thousands of years. Just check out the filthy graffiti on the walls of Pompeii. Although cursing has changed over time, the F-word and its ilk have been around for hundreds of...
“Raise hell and put a chunk under it” is simply an intensified version of the phrase “raise hell,” meaning “to cause trouble” or “create a noisy disturbance.” This is part of a complete episode...

