Jackie in Wausau, Wisconsin, says her family used an odd word whenever someone took a sip and choked. She’s not seen it in print, but suspects it’d be spelled something like furschluk. The family’s word is likely adapted from German verschlucken, from schlucken “to swallow,” with the prefix ver- functioning as an intensifier suggesting someone didn’t swallow correctly. In parts of the U.S. with strong German heritage, you may even hear the English phrase “I swallowed myself,” from German sich verschlucken, to mean that the person took a drink and it went down the wrong pipe. This is part of a complete episode.
The first person on your street to put out the trash and recycling? That’s your street’s binfluencer, a combination of bin and influencer. In the UK, this term is sometimes used to denote someone who encourages recycling and waste reduction. In the...
Do you refer to nighttime sleepwear as jammies, jommies, or something else? A Nashville, Tennessee, woman says that her family referred to pajamas as jommies, while her husband’s family always called them jammies. Although jammies is the far more...
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