It’s hard enough to get a new word into the dictionary. But what happens when lawmakers get involved? New Jersey legislators passed a resolution as part of an anti-bullying campaign urging dictionary companies to adopt the word upstander. It...
Writers and where they do their best creative work. A new book on Geoffrey Chaucer describes the dark, cramped, smelly room where he wrote his early work. Which raises the question: What kind of space do you need to produce your best writing...
From listener Richard Gaillard comes this question: I lived in North Carolina most of my life and in the North Carolina mountains for 11 years. Working as a carpenter I heard lots of slang terms. One exclamation (almost expletive) I heard often, and...
In what profession would you deal with clams, footballs, hairpins, and axes? They’re all slang terms used by classical musicians. This is part of a complete episode.
Shut your piehole! means “Shut your mouth!” Need more slang terms for the mouth? For starters, there’s potato trap, tater trap, tatty trap, bun trap, gingerbread trap, kissing trap, fly trap, rattle trap, baconhole, and cakehole...
Is that snazzy new car adorbs or bobo? Grant talks about adorbs, bobo, and a few other slang terms collected by Professor Connie Eble of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. This is part of a complete episode.