The online Dictionary of American Regional English lets readers search entries in full, so a search for donut and doughnut turns up many regional terms. Among them are friedcake, twister, floater, sinker, finger, drop cake, dough ball, dough boy...
Sondra, calling from Columbus, Georgia, remembered her mother saying don’t be messing and gauming with that, usually about food. The phrase means dawdling, puttering, or getting into trouble and is heard primarily in the US South. The gauming part...
Don’t think about ordering a soft serve ice cream in Vermont—there, it’s a Creemee. The term has stuck around the Green Mountain State by the sheer force of Vermonter pride. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of...
Cyarn and kyarn are spellings for a Southern and Appalachian pronunciation of carrion, the rotting flesh of a dead animal. Kenny from Barnesville, Georgia, heard his mother use it for roadkill dragged into the yard by a dog and also more broadly for...
You’ve noticed work seems to expand to fill the time given to complete it. But did you know there’s a term for that? Also this week, the New England exclamation “So don’t I!,” grey vs. gray, building storeys, being...
The term pull-haul, meaning “a verbal conflict,” is heard in New England, particularly Maine. A 1914 citation in the Dictionary of American Regional English alludes to all the pull-hauling among churches when a new congregant moves to...