Elias in Laramie, Wyoming, says his grandmother used to say Tut, tut to mean No, no. Like tsk, tsk, it’s a sound made between the teeth to show disapproval. Surprisingly, both expressions originally spelled out the same sound but they’ve come to be...
Jack from Sentinel Butte, North Dakota, observes that in his part of the country, the word outfit can have any of several meanings. Buying a new outfit doesn’t necessarily mean “buying a new set of clothes.” It could well refer to “buying a new car”...
Jean in Greenville, South Carolina, shares a funny story about learning the term locoweed, which she learned from watching lots of Westerns as a child. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “A Child Hears About Locoweed” Jean Anderson...
The winner of the Western category of the 2021 Bulwer-Lytton Contest, which rewards cleverly awful first lines of fiction, explains what happens when Tumbleweed Mulligan and Johnny “Trigger” McAllister take over the Black Dog Saloon for the...
Josh in Binghamton, New York, wonders about the slang term beefed it, meaning to “took a hard fall.” It’s probably connected to biff, often used in snowboarding and mountain biking, meaning “to fail” or “do badly.” This is part of a complete episode...
Pizey is an old dialectal term from the United Kingdom that means “peevish” or “irritable.” Pizey and pize, as in A pize upon you! may be related to the word poison. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Pizey” Hello, you have A Way...
