Alight and come in is an old-fashioned, hospitable phrase recalling a time when a visitor who’s ridden a long way might be invited to hop off his horse and step inside for a meal. Variations include alight and look at your saddle and alight and look...
The Pope has several Twitter feeds — and one of them’s entirely in Latin! But how do you adapt an ancient language to the modern world of selfies and hashtags? Plus, pit bull lovers are giving their dogs a linguistic makeover; they’re calling their...
In parts of the South, it’s not uncommon to end a sentence about a dilemma with the word one, short for one or the other, as in “I’m going to quit my job or get fired, one.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Southern Sentence about...
What the fox says may be a mystery, but we do know that dogs bark differently around the world. In China, for example, they say not bow-wow but wang wang. Also, the story behind the British tradition of scrumping. It’s not a middle school dance...
To mash the brake or mash the elevator button comes from a Southern instance of mash meaning “to press something hard.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Mash the Brake” Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hello, this is Mike Semrau...
Jane in Monticello, Florida, asks about nairn in sentences such as I don’t want nairn, meaning “I don’t want any.” The word is usually spelled nairn and is a contraction of never a one, and related to nary. It has been used for hundreds of years...
