Karina from Maryville, Missouri, disagrees with her mom about whether bowl and bull sound the same. Karina hears them as the same sound, while her mom hears a clear difference. It’s an example of a vowel merger, or sound shift, that occurs in...
The dialect heard in the state of Utah includes lexical items such as the hotdish casserole called funeral potatoes, as well as the mayo-ketchup condiment called fry sauce, and a particular type of scone, also called fry bread. Utah is also known...
Victorian slang and a modern controversy over language and gender. In the early 1900’s, a door-knocker wasn’t just what visitors used to announce their arrival, it was a type of beard with a similar shape. And in the 21st century: Is it...
Mark in Long Beach, California, was considering hell for leather as a racing-team name. The phrase means going recklessly at full speed, but its origin is uncertain. A traditional explanation points to a rough horseback ride, with saddle, reins, or...
A Dallas, Texas, caller says his girlfriend from a rural part of his state has an unusual way of pronouncing certain words. Email sounds like EE-mill, toenail like TOW-nell, and tell-tale like TELL-tell. These sounds are the result of a well-known...
The guy who may be the nation’s foremost garage sale expert called us from Crescent City, California, with a question that’s vital for anyone writing or thinking about garage sales: Do the verbs garage-saling or yard-saling refer to the...