After moving from Indiana to Arkansas, Shannon noted that people in her new hometown use the adjective proud to mean “glad,” as in “I’m so proud you came for a visit.” In addition to describing someone “full of...
Jill in Shelton, Washington, says that when she lived in Southern California, she understood the word garbage to mean food scraps, with trash referring to everything else collected curbside. Historically, garbage has referred to the wet, disgusting...
An ornithologist says there’s a growing movement to change the name of a pink-footed bird currently called the flesh-footed shearwater. The movement reflects a growing understanding that using flesh-colored for “pink” fails to...
What we’re reading: Crystal Wilkinson, a member of the Affrilachian Poets, is author of The Birds of Opulence, a quiet, lyrical novel about relationships between family members, and between humans and nature, about things said and unsaid with...
The terms cuddle death, piping, tooting, quacking, drone comet, and waggle dance are all part of the parlance of beekeepers. The book Queenspotting by Hilary Kearney details these and other bee-related terms. Kearney’s website, Girl Next Door...
A Wisconsin listener’s family adopts their youngster’s made-up term for the treads on a boot. Years later, they all still refer to those things as bumpity-scrapples. This is part of a complete episode.