Callum at UC Irvine grew up with baffies, the family word for rounded, heeled morning slippers, and later found that friends didn’t recognize it. The singular is baffy, and in Scotland baff can mean a bedroom slipper. The word came through Callum’s...
What’s the antidote to living in a sound-bite world? How about unwinding with luxuriously expressive prose? Also, the cloak-and-dagger world of editing dictionary entries. Plus, what you might say instead of cursing, and oddball Scrabble words to...
Understandings aren’t just for epistemologists and marriage counselors. In the 18th Century, the slang term understandings was a jocular name for “boots” or “shoes.” Later, the word also came to be a joking term for “legs.” This is part of a...
Bobo, mentioned in an earlier discussion of UNC-Chapel Hill slang for something crummy or inferior, drew memories from around the country. Some people remembered bobos in the late 1970s and early 1980s as cheap or off-brand shoes, with a schoolyard...
A caller wants to know why those deep-fried balls of cornmeal and spices are called hush puppies. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Hush Puppies” Hello, you have A Way with Words. Yes, hi, this is Hallie. Hello, Hallie, what’s going...
