Our list of words for stingy people just grew longer, thanks to a contribution from Rick in San Antonio, Texas: When he lived in Brazil, he learned the expression mão-de-vaca, literally “hand of a cow” and pão-duro, literally “hard...
Brandon from Lewes, Delaware, is eager to move up the career ladder, and has been telling people he seeks a path to ascension within a company. Is ascension the right word to use in this case? A better choice would be advancement. Generally...
Why do we describe someone or something very special as all that and a bag of chips? It’s an intensifier of the expression all that and appears to have been popularized by a 1991 newspaper story about new slang, playing off the earlier...
After our conversation about mini-seasons between the usual winter, spring, summer, and fall, listeners share other examples: stick season in Vermont and mud season in Michigan. The Old English word for “February,” solmonath, may derive...
Imagine you’re on a long road trip. Is there a word for that other driver who sets the pace for your car mile after mile? Road buddy, perhaps? A Rhode Island caller says her family calls that driver a Follow John. Social psychologist Stanley...
Why do some people pronounce the word sandwich as “SANG-witch”? It’s common among first-generation Italian and Spanish speakers trying to approximate that N-D-W combination of sounds, which don’t exist in their native...