Does language acquisition correspond with being ambidextrous? A woman notices her polyglot husband takes notes with his right hand for certain languages, then switches to his left for other ones. And: What’s the difference between an orchard...
Joan from Augusta, Georgia, says her grandfather used to pronounce the word onions as if they were spelled ernions. The word onion is adapted from the French cognate oignon, and thanks to variations in dialect, geography, and other factors, this...
Why do some people pronounce the word sandwich as “SANG-witch”? It’s common among first-generation Italian and Spanish speakers trying to approximate that N-D-W combination of sounds, which don’t exist in their native...
Sarah from Dallas called us years ago to talk about the word preheat. Now newly married, she and her Russian husband have a friendly dispute over this question: “What is a sandwich?” We gingerly wade into the longstanding cultural debate...
The names of professional sports teams often have surprising histories — like the baseball team name inspired by, of all things, trolley-car accidents. Plus, some questions to debate at your next barbecue: Is a hot dog a sandwich if it’s...
A New York City listener recalls that as a youth in Erie, Pennsylvania, he and his peers referred to a peanut butter and jelly sandwich as a choke-and-slide or choke-n-slide. It’s a reference to the qualities of the sticky peanut butter and...