The Spanglish term frajo, meaning “cigarette,” evolved over a couple of generations of Mexican-American language. Primarily thanks to pachucos, sometimes known as zoot-suiters, the term developed from the verb fajar, meaning “to...
Do you use paper towels or paper towelling? While a listener insists her husband’s wrong for his use of paper towelling, Grant explains how certain nouns take a gerund ending. For example, clothes derive from clothing, and the side of a house...
A Canadian listener’s boyfriend has a special talent. He can remove his socks, roll them up, and throw them across the room into the laundry basket, all with his toes. She says he has toe dexterity, but wonders if the word dexterous can apply...
Listeners emailed us in response to a call on the sonorous bow-chicka-wow-wow cliche, and we’re glad they did. We learned that country star Trace Adkins has a song called Brown Chicken, Brown Cow that uses puppets to demonstrate just what it...
Does your family have a word for the cardboard tube left over from a roll of toilet paper? A caller says his family refers to them Oh-ah, Oh-ahs. Turns out many families have their own terms for them, including drit-drit, dawda dawda, hoo-hoo, to...
roll-on n.— «I also know that many white brothers who raise issues with Msholozi’s polygamous ways are not necessarily opposed to the notion of having two or three wives. In fact, many of them have their “roll-ons” (township argot for...