Sketchy, meaning creepy, shady, or possibly dangerous, was all over Katie’s Portland, Oregon, college campus, in phrases like a sketchy part of town and playful extensions such as Sketchyville and Sketchy McSketcherson. This slang sense shows up by...
A Slang This! contestant guesses at the meaning of the slang terms faux po and pole tax. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Faux Po and Pole Tax” You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Grant Barrett. And...
Speaking of the more recent past: When you played hide-and-seek as a child, did you yell “Ollie, Ollie Oxen Free”? Or “Ally Ally in Free”? Or maybe “Ally Ally Ump Free”? “Ole Ole Olsen Free”? Or...
flossy adj.— «Most of the good Portland restaurants serve what is known as “flossy” food (for fresh, local, organic, sustainable, seasonable). Flossies are people who believe in these ideals and try to eat in that manner...
medano n.— «For instance, the term for a kind of dune called a “medano” that forms only on North Carolina’s Outer Banks…and a strange jag of land found under the water off the coast of Monterey, Calif., that’s called a...
