Language enthusiasts, rejoice! Jonathon Green’s extraordinary Green’s Dictionary of Slang is now available online. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Green’s Dictionary of Slang” You’re listening...
We talk about something occurring beforehand, so why don’t we talk about something happening afterhand? Actually, afterhand goes all the way back to 15th-century English, even though it’s not that commonly used today. This is part of a...
A woman in Middlesex, Vermont, says that when she was a girl her parents sometimes described her as porky, but they weren’t referring to her appearance — they meant she was acting rebelliously. This use of the word might be related to pawky...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski brings a quiz based on what editors for the Oxford English Dictionary say are the 100 Most Common Words in English. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Most Common Words Quiz” You’re listening...
No great shakes means not impressive, no big deal, or nothing much to boast about. Kat in Dallas learned it from her mother and found that friends sometimes took it for a family oddity, but the expression has been around at least since the early...
A listener in Bayfield, Wisconsin, says her grandmother used to tell her to “go sozzle in the bathtub.” John Russell Bartlett’s 1848 Dictionary of Americanisms defines the verb to sozzle this way: “to loll; to lounge; to go...