It’s hard enough to get a new word into the dictionary. But what happens when lawmakers get involved? New Jersey legislators passed a resolution as part of an anti-bullying campaign urging dictionary companies to adopt the word upstander. It...
Is there a word for that mind-blowing moment when you think you’ve heard it all, but then something happens that’s completely out of your realm of experience? You might call this phenomenon a marmalade dropper. Others might call it a...
Sharing a secret language. Did you ever speak in gibberish with a childhood pal, adding extra syllables to words so the adults couldn’t understand what you were saying? Such wordplay isn’t just for kids—and it’s not just limited to...
After we heard from a listener about the phenomenon of swiping our hands together after finishing a chore—which she calls all-done clappy hands—several others reached out to say that in Great Britain, they use the phrase done and dusted. This is...
The books we love as children may influence our careers more than we realize. As a child, Martha was fascinated with stories of cracking codes, and Grant loved books with glossaries–not that far from the kind of work they do today. A caller...
A listener named Kio from Los Angeles says she spent some time in England, and while her colleagues there claimed that her valley girl slang was rubbing off on them, she herself picked up plenty of English slang. This is a classic linguistic...