Ty in Nashville, Tennessee, has fond memories of his dad handing him what he called folding money. This term simply refers to bills, rather than coins. Other versions include folding dough, folding stuff, folding matter, folding green, folding...
Sure, there’s winter, spring, summer, and fall. But the seasons in between have even more poetic names. In Alaska, greenup describes a sudden, dramatic burst of green after a long, dark winter. And there are many, many terms for a cold snap...
Jennifer in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, has been in recovery from substance abuse for 29 years now, and still recalls some of the slang she heard back in the days when she was using illicit drugs. Her ex-husband used to say Now you got my nose open...
Tennessee lawmakers have passed a resolution affirming that Appalachian English is a “fully legitimate dialect and most deserving of the respect afforded other dialects of American English.” This is part of a complete episode.
Whitney from Memphis, Tennessee, is curious about the origin of the phrase to beat the band, which describes something happening in forceful or energetic way. Although the origins of this Americanism are murky, it may refer to a time when every...
John says that many of the older patients in his Northeast Tennessee orthopedics clinic will refer to habitual activity as occurring of the morning or of the evening. The vastly more common versions of these phrases in the South and South Midlands...