Calisa in Wilmington, North Carolina, wonders about the origin of the term fair to middling, meaning “about average.” It derives from an old system of classifying agricultural products. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of...
A Indianapolis, Indiana, woman remembers that her Kentucky-born grandfather used to say that a lazy person wasn’t very work-brickle. The dialectal term work-brickle is a variant of work-brittle, which, in the late 19th century, described...
“Make a branch” is a euphemism that means “to urinate,” the word branch being a dialectal term for “a small stream.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Make a Branch” Hello, you have A...
In the Navy and the Marines, if someone goes hermantile, they’re angry, shouting, and unpredictable. This slang expression is of uncertain origin. It goes back to World War I but has stayed almost exclusively within the military’s...
Faunching around, Donna from El Cajon, California’s family term for squirming fussily or impatiently, isn’t unique to them. The Dictionary of American Regional English records faunch by 1970 meaning to fret or show irritation or impatience. An older...
twiller n.— «Recently, a handful of creators (present company included) have scrapped pen and paper for mobile phone and keypad, and started texting their novels—in real time, just a few characters at a time. Our medium is Twitter, a...