On the occasion of National Grammar Day, University of Illinois linguist Dennis Barron has pointed out some arresting posters from a wartime version from the early 20th century. They’re from a 1918 Chicago Women’s Club initiative called...
In the Navy and the Marines, if someone goes hermantile, they’re angry, shouting, and unpredictable. This slang expression is of uncertain origin. It goes back to World War I but has stayed almost exclusively within the military’s...
Downton Abbey, a program featured on Masterpiece Theater, provided a handful of colorful expressions that date surprisingly far back. “Like it or lump it,” meaning “deal with it,” is found at least as early as 1830 and takes...
A Texas listener came across the word Boche in a biography of a French statesman, and wants to know: What does it mean, exactly?
A caller from Texas wonders what the “D” stands for in D-Day. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “”D” in D-Day” Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hello, this is Mike. I’m calling from Odessa...
A 2009 article in American Speech by John Considine proposes that blotto, slang for drunk since around World War I, may come from Blotto Frères, a French maker of a three-wheeled delivery vehicle known to be dangerous and erratic. The idea is that...