You might be surprised to learn that a “hoosier” isn’t necessarily from Indiana. Around the St. Louis, Missouri, area, the term hoosier has a whole other meaning. And: Scotland is the home of the Golden Spurtle world championship, but what exactly...
Mary-Clare recalls that when she was growing up in St. Louis, Missouri, everyone she knew used the term hoosier as a kind of teasing pejorative. If someone did something silly, others would say You’re such a hoosier, the adjective hoozh, or jokingly...
Keith in Valparaiso, Indiana, grew up hearing his mother call the refrigerator compartment the icebox, a term that isn’t just a family quirk. Before electric refrigerators became common, especially before the 1930s, an icebox was a wooden cabinet...
The long popular and newly legal-to-sing “Happy Birthday to You” has always been ripe for lyrical variations, particularly at the end of the song. Some add a “cha cha cha” or “forever more on Channel 4,” but a...
It’s the Up Goer Five Challenge! Try to describe something complex using only the thousand most common words in English. It’s a useful mental exercise that’s harder than you might think. Also, if you want to make a room dark, you...
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...