Our discussion about grammagrams prompts listeners to send in several more stories from their workplaces. A high-school drama teacher in Arlington, Texas, reports that in the theater world, the letter Q is scribbled in scripts to mean cue. A...
A Carmel, Indiana, teacher is puzzled to hear younger colleagues pronounce the words kitten and mitten as KIH-un and MIH-un, with a noticeable break between the syllables. Linguist David Eddington of Brigham Young University reports that this...
An Indianapolis, Indiana, teacher and his class wonder about the origin of whistling in the dark, which means “to put on a brave face in a scary situation.” As it happens, the teacher’s band, The Knollwood Boys, recorded a song by...
An eighth-grade history teacher from Denton, Texas, is teaching about colonial America, and wonders if there’s a difference between the phrases to found a colony or establish a colony. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of...
A listener in Burlington, Vermont, remembers being punished as a youngster for talking during class. His teacher forced him to write out this proverb dozens of times: “For those who talk, and talk, and talk, this proverb may appeal. The steam...
Have you ever offered to foster a dog or cat, but wound up adopting instead? There’s an alliterative term for that. And when you’re on the job, do niceties like “Yes, ma’am” and “No, sir” make you sound too...