What do you call a long sandwich filled with lots of ingredients? Whether you call it a sub, a hoagie, a grinder, or something else entirely depends on where you’re from. And: Martha’s visit to an Alaskan reindeer ranch reveals why you really do...
Alice in Aiken, South Carolina, says that when working for the U.S. Navy, she’d hear sailors as What’s the defugalty? meaning “What’s the problem?” She wonders if defugalty is a legitimate word. It’s an intentional mispronunciation of difficulty...
One of the words newly added to the 7th edition of The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary (Bookshop|Amazon) is vaquita, the name of a small dolphin that lives in the Sea of Cortez. In Spanish, the name of this endangered animal means “little cow.”...
Twitter user @crookedroads770 observed that his two-year-old son referred to an owl as a wood penguin. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Wood Penguin” I loved this tweet from someone whose handle is CrookedRoads770. He wrote, I...
The animal called an aardvark takes its name from an Afrikaans term meaning “earth pig.” The word is cognate with the English words earth and pork. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Aardvarks” Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hi...