Jane in Elk Park, North Carolina, grew up hearing her great-uncle say a misbehaving child was cutting a head shine—pulling some caper or carrying on in a noisy, comic way. The expression likely combines shine, used since at least the 1830s for a...
Is Hoosier a derogatory term? People from Indiana proudly embrace it, but in the dialect island that is the St. Louis area, the word means someone who is uncouth or uncultured. In Southern Appalachia, the related words hoodger, and hoojer still...