Miles from Madison, Wisconsin, is musing about whether there’s a single word or phrase for the time of year when it snows while leaves are still on the trees. One jocular term for snow falling on leaves during that liminal period is snowliage...
Sandy from Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin, wonders if there’s a specific word for “window shopping, but online.” One option is browsing. In French, “to go window shopping” is faire du lèche-vitrine, or literally, “to...
Our conversation about dressed eggs serving as a euphemism for deviled eggs prompts Kim from Spooner, Wisconsin, to share that her mother and grandmother called them pretty eggs for the same reason. This is part of a complete episode.
Nell in Madison, Wisconsin, says her family always had a drawer where they kept birthday candles, odd keys, matches, pencils, random batteries. They called it the mystery drawer. Some people call it a junk drawer or the work drawer. The term mystery...
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.
After our conversation about sisu, the distinctively Finnish term for “intestinal fortitude,” a listener of Finnish heritage from northern Wisconsin emails to illustrate the Finns’ understanding the word. Sisu, he says, requires...