Critters, co-workers, and clothes: What do you call your favorite mixed-breed dog? There are Heinz 57 mutts and Texas brown dogs in the U.S., while in parts of the Caribbean they’re called potcakes and coconut retrievers. Plus, among firefighters...
A magnificent new book celebrates the richness and diversity of 450 years of written and spoken English in what is now the United States. It’s called The People’s Tongue, and it’s a sumptuous collection of essays, letters, poems...
In Southern California, June gloom is the familiar marine layer that rolls in with overcast skies. Jeremy from Long Beach wonders if other places have similarly named weather patterns. Indeed, Southern California also has May gray, no sky July, and...
If someone tells you it’s flisky or flobby outside, do you need to take an umbrella? A new book about England’s soggy climate includes 188 terms for rainy weather. Americans have their own joking names for local weather, from June Gloom in Southern...
High school students in Alabama share some favorite slang terms. If someone tells you to touch grass, they’re telling you to get a reality check — but the last thing you’d actually want to touch is dog water! Also, the history of the...
Morgan from Los Angeles, California, has always used dingy (pronounced with a hard G, like dinghy) to describe that woozy, muddle-headed feeling that comes with being sick, a sense she picked up from her mother. Standard dictionaries offer entries...