A speech pathologist in Greensboro, North Carolina, named Linda reports that when none of her coworkers offered to take up a task, their boss voluntold one of them to do it. A jocular combination of volunteer and told, this slang is often heard in the military. Linda says a friend of hers uses the term swallowship to mean the act of “sharing a meal in fellowship with others.” Linda herself praises students with the term smart attack, as in You just had a smart attack!This is part of a complete episode.
According to Gobsmacked: The British Invasion of American English (Bookshop|Amazon) by Ben Yagoda, the word smarmy, meaning “unctuous” or “ingratiating,” may come from a 19th-century magazine contest, in which readers sent in...
Mary Beth in Greenville, South Carolina, wonders: Why do we say four-oh-nine for the number 409 instead of four-zero-nine or four-aught-nine? What are the rules for saying either zero or oh or aught or ought to indicate that arithmetical symbol...
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