Ashley in Danville, Kentucky, says that if she’s looking pale or wan, her mother will say You look like a haint. The dialectal term haint is used throughout much of the American South to mean “ghost” or “evil spirit”...
A caller wonders if she’s being hypersensitive about the way her boss addresses her in emails. Can the use of an employee’s first name ever reflect a power differential? And: a community choir director wants a term for “the act of...
A South Carolina teen calls to ask why the English language has a word meaning “to throw someone out of a window,” but no word for “the day after tomorrow.” The word defenestrate, from Latin fenestra, “window,”...
A librarian opens a book and finds a mysterious invitation scribbled on the back of a business card. Another discovers a child’s letter to the Tooth Fairy, tucked into a book decades ago. What stories are left untold by these forgotten...
Janet calls from Aiken, South Carolina, to say that her father used to ask Have you dressed your bed? meaning “Have you made your bed?” The word dress likely derives from Latin dirigere, meaning “to straighten” or “to...
Bill calls from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, to say his late wife, who was from South Milwaukee, Wisconsin, would jokingly tell him You talk like a sausage! What exactly did she mean? Although Germans have many expressions that include the word...