Leslie from Hickory, North Carolina, is curious about an expression her grandmother used when the weather was particularly warm. Leslie never saw the expression spelled out, but she guesses it was hot as bringup, and pronounced with a soft g. Was...
Joan from Dallas, Texas, wants to know why some people are judgmental about people who speak with a glottal stop in such words as cattle, bottle, or even glottal itself. She noted a commenter on TikTok criticizing a Scottish woman for pronouncing...
Damien from New York City, NY, is curious about the term his Hungarian grandmother used for the crust that forms at the corners of your eyes after a night’s sleep. The Hungarian word for eye boogers is csipa, pronounced “CHEE-pah.”...
A native German speaker is curious about the English word doofus, which sounds a lot like German doof, meaning “stupid” or “daft.” English doofus first appeared in the 1960s, apparently modeled after goofus, another...
Catherine in Battle Creek, Michigan, saw a bumper sticker with the Scots phrase Dinna fash, meaning “Don’t worry.” Dinna in this phrase means “don’t” and fash incomes from a French verb fâcher, meaning “to...
In the Scots language, pree means “to taste” or “sample.” If you pree someone’s mouth, then you give them a kiss on the lips. It’s a variant of the word prove, and cognate with Spanish probar, to “taste...