A caller originally from South Florida grew up calling the screened-in patio area behind her house a lanai, but now that she lives in Indianapolis, she hears this structure called breezeway. The word lanai originated in Hawaii, and may have been...
Jennifer from San Diego giggles whenever she hears per se. She first noticed it when a character in a South Park episode used the phrase constantly. Some people informally spell it per say, but the Latin se means itself. So per se means “in itself”...
You say puh-KAHN, I say PEE-can. Just how do you pronounce the name of the nut called a pecan? Turns out, there are several correct pronunciations. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Pecan Pronunciation” Hello, you have A...
Pallet, in Southern and South Midland speech, can mean a makeshift bed on the floor, like the one Angela remembered making as a child in Texas. The blues and folk standard “Make Me a Pallet on Your Floor,” recorded by artists including Mississippi...
If you’ve “seen the elephant,” it means you’ve been in combat. But why an elephant? Martha and Grant also discuss some odd idioms in Spanish, including one that translates as “your bowtie is whistling.” And what...
Nathaniel, a vegetarian in Vermillion, South Dakota, encountered a tavern sandwich after moving from Kansas City and wondered why a word for a drinking place also names a sandwich. The sandwich is a loose-meat sandwich on a hamburger bun, familiar...