Loretta in Shreveport, Louisiana, wants to know what lexical and dialectal clues linguists look for when guessing where someone is from. She also wonders: Do people with long careers in the military or who grew up in a military family have a...
Hannah from Shreveport, Louisiana, is curious about Cooter Brown, a name she’s often heard applied to someone behaving mischievously. Cooter Brown shows up in several expressions, including drunk as Cooter Brown, high as Cooter Brown, and fast...
shock and hee-haw n.— «The surge really has accomplished a reduction in the violence, and things are safer. But convoys are still being hit by the IEDs and the vehicle-borne IEDs. They’re even putting explosive devices under satchels on...
rent-a-rock n.— «Officer Christian Hicks says right now there’s no evidence of a carjacking, but there is evidence Shelley’s so-called friend turned the SUV into what’s called a rent-a-rock. That’s where someone loans someone else a...
trailing spouse n.— «The trend also means more companies hiring new executives offer some job-finding services to the spouse. In a growing number of cases, the so-called “trailing spouse” in human resources parlance, is the...
ee-dub n.— «“These have already flown in the F-22, the F-16 and the F-15,” said Lt. Col. Chris Rounds, “stan-eval” chief—head of standardization and evaluation—for the 917th. He’s an electronic-warfare officer, or, in...