“Scat cat, your tail’s on fire” is a fun variant of “scat cat, get your tail out of the gravy”—both of which are Southern ways to say “bless you” after someone sneezes. This is part of a complete episode...
Something excellent can be said to “tear the rag off the bush,” or “take the rag,” and it likely comes from old Western shooting competitions, where the winner would shoot a rag off a bush. The Oxford English Dictionary shows...
One listener’s term, tee-ella-berta, is among hundreds of euphemisms for the derriere, including tee-hiney, tee-hineyboo, and tee-hinder. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Tee-Ella-Berta” Hello, you have A Way with...
Anna in Dallas, Texas, doubts her fiancée Sarah’s family word biffed it, but Sarah has the dictionaries on her side: to biff it can mean to fall, especially in an embarrassing way. Sarah grew up hearing it from her grandmother and aunt, including...
We often hear that English is going to hell in a handbasket. Actually, though, linguistic handwringing about sinking standards and sloppy speech has been going on for centuries – at least as far back as the 1300’s! And: language also...
A stepmother slice, according to a 1915 citation in the Dictionary of American Regional English, is a slice of bread that’s too thick to bite. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Stepmother Slice” I was just paging...