A Huntsville, Alabama, listener says that when someone was being abrasive or mean or defiant, her mother would say she’s got her habits on. This phrase appears in the work of many blues singers, including Lucille Bogan and Bessie Smith, and...
Giving your baby an unusual moniker may seem like a great idea at the time. But what if you have second thoughts? One mother of a newborn had such bad namer’s remorse, she poured out her heart to strangers online. Speaking of mothers and...
Jay in Florida Home, Florida, grew up in a small North Florida community with five jook joints, places to dance, drink, gamble, and get into trouble. Jook, often juke, appears to have reached American English through Gullah communities in South...
“You might want horns, but you’re gonna die butt-headed!” This expression derives from butt-headed, meaning “without horns,” and shows up in the writing of Zora Neale Hurston. This is part of a complete episode...
Among some African-Americans, the term Hannah means “the sun.” This sense is memorialized in the lyrics of “Go Down Old Hannah,” a work song from the 1930s. One writer said of this haunting melody: “About 3...
“You’d better behave, or I’ll knock you from an amazing grace to a floating opportunity!” This African-American saying, used as a motherly warning, first popped up in the 1930 play Mule Bone by Langston Hughes and Zora Neale...