Watergate salad is a chilled dish of pistachio pudding mixed with whipped cream and pineapple. Although this name capitalizes on the 1970s political scandal associated with Watergate burglary, the salad itself isn’t connected to politics, as it is older than the scandal. Love it or loathe it, Watergate salad goes by lots of other names, including pooflapoo pie, the green stuff, shut-the-gate salad, green goop, green goddess, green fluff, and mean green. Another food name capitalizing on current events is baked Alaska, supposedly named in honor of the 1867 acquisition of Alaska by the United States. This is part of a complete episode.
The so-called “lifestyle influencer accent” you hear in videos on TikTok and YouTube, where someone speaks with rising tones at the end of sentences and phrases, suggesting that they’re about to say something important, is a form of what linguists...
Meg in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, gets why the state highway department encourages drivers to use their blinkers when changing lanes, but placing a digital sign at the Sagamore Bridge that reads Use Ya Blinkah is, well, a lexical bridge too far. Meg’s...
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