Judy from Binghamton, New York, remembers her aunt in Redding, Pennsylvania, using the term ferhunsed to mean “confused.” Sometimes spelled fahunst or ferhoonsed, it means “teased” or “mixed up,” and derives from...
In eastern Pennsylvania, the adjective strubbly describes hair that’s unkempt or messed up. It’s also spelled “strubley,” “stribley,” “stroobley,” “strubly,” “stribly,”...
Joan in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, asks about hayna, a spoken regional term she grew up with in northeastern Pennsylvania. It’s used as a friendly tag question meaning something like isn’t it? or right? Hayna is an orally transmitted tag question...
A California college student is campaigning for international scientific authorities to adopt the slang term hella as an official prefix indicating a huge number. Will he succeed? Also, how to pronounce niche, the regional terms doppick and nixie...
Steva, a small-animal veterinarian in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania, has learned that a doppick dog is clumsy or uncoordinated. The word is a borrowing from Pennsylvania German, ultimately from the German Doppich, meaning clumsy or awkward. A nixie cat...