A swinging song by Glenn Miller and His Orchestra called “I’ve Got a Gal in Kalamazoo” drops the line “What a gal, a real pipperoo.” A homeschooling family in Maine wonders just what a pipperoo is. For one, the suffix ...
A listener from Bozeman, Montana, wonders: Is it lame to add the letters th to the end of adjectives to make new nouns like lameth? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Adding Letters to Make New Nouns” Hello, you have A...
Count on the Germans to have a picturesque term for a pout: Schippchen, that face you make by sticking out your bottom lip, comes from a word that means “little shovel.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “German for...
Your telephone is for talking, right? Or is it? We’re guessing it’s been a while since you sat next to a telephone waiting for it to ring. In fact, maybe you’re one of those people who HATE to see that voicemail message light...
Long before English speakers adopted the suffix –orama, as in Scoutorama and smell-o-rama, there was the French word panorama referring to “a great display or spectacle.” Panorama comes from Greek words that mean “whole view.” University of Alabama...
For language lovers, it’s like New Year’s, Fourth of July, and the Super Bowl all rolled into one: The brand-new online edition of the Dictionary of American Regional English. Martha and Grant explain what all the fuss is about. Plus...