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I’ll Be Sheep-Dipped

What a difference pronunciation makes! The United States has a Department of Defense, and an individual might take classes in self-defense. So why do football and basketball coaches say they’re proud of their . . . “DEE-fence?”...

250 Year Anniversary

We’ll be celebrating the United States’ 250-year anniversary in about 12 years, and if you’re looking for a neat, shiny term for the event, how about bicenquinquagenary, or perhaps sestercentennial? This is part of a complete...

Green’s Dictionary of Slang

Can you guess what a smiley is? No, the other smiley. Or how about tarantula juice? You could, of course, happen upon someone with a muffin top drinking inferior whisky, or you could look these terms up in the new Green’s Dictionary of Slang...

Learned vs. Learnt

Are we tested on what we’ve learned, or what we’ve learnt? Grant explains how efforts to replace the “t” verb ending with “ed” gradually took hold in the United States, but not in Britain. Affiliated nations, such...

BOTUS

Did you know the POTUS (President of the United States) has a BOTUS? Grant explains what a BOTUS is. This is part of a complete episode.

Pet Dog Name Change

Martha shares another email about the evolution of a pet’s name, in this case a dog whose original name was Dumpster. Now the pooch is named after the 19th president of the United States. Sort of. This is part of a complete episode.

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