Barbara Kingsolver’s book Demon Copperhead is a retelling of Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield set in today’s Appalachia. Martha shares memories of a long-ago visit to Kingsolver’s family farm in Virginia, where they...
In the 1940s, the slang phrase You shred it, wheat! was used to express complete agreement with something, a punning variation of You said it! The phrase was sometimes also used as a retort meaning “Figure it out yourself.” This is part...
It’s hard to imagine now, but there was a time when people disagreed over the best word to use when answering the phone. Alexander Graham Bell suggested answering with ahoy! but Thomas Edison was partial to hello! A fascinating new book about...
A listener who grew up in Ukraine recalls that her family always referred to chicken drumsticks by a name that translates as Bush’s legs. This jocular term refers to an agreement between U.S. President George H.W. Bush and Soviet leader...
Brand names, children’s games, and the etiquette of phone conversations. Those clever plastic PEZ dispensers come in all shapes and sizes—but where did the word PEZ come from? The popular candy’s name is the product of wordplay involving...
A customer-service representative from Seattle, Washington, is curious about the phrases people use as a part of leave-taking when they’re finishing a telephone conversation. Linguists who conduct discourse analysis on such conversations say...