After our conversation about whoopsy-daisy and other terms for a sudden dip in the road, Jane in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, reports that she’s heard people in Wisconsin and Minnesota refer to such a dip as a hoopla. This is part of a complete...
Addie in Neenah, Wisconsin, seeks the origin of a word her grandfather used for gunk that gets stuck, such as a bit of food between one’s teeth. The dialectal term is likely ackempucky, which, according to the Dictionary of American Regional...
A caller in Cooperstown, North Dakota, remembers her West Virginia-born grandmother’s stern warning: Willful waste will lead to woeful want. The more common version, Wilful waste makes woeful want, goes back to the 18th century. Other versions...
As noted in Francis Grose’s A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (Bookshop|Amazon), the term red rag, also redrag, is an old slang term for “the tongue,” as in the quotation he cites with a variant spelling of potato: Shut...
Galen in White River, Arizona, asks: Is there really a “neutral” accent, and if so, what is it? This is part of a complete episode.
Quiz Guy John Chaneski has a take-off puzzle this week, offering clues to rhyming two-word phrases made by removing the letter D from the beginning of one of them. For example, if your sound equipment was damaged in a flood, what are you left with...