Following up on our conversation about words like elderly and senior citizen, a listener in Albuquerque, New Mexico, suggests the term seasoned citizen. A store in San Diego, California, offers customers over 60 a wisdom discount. The transit system...
Mary in Alexandria, Virginia, wonders when words like senior and senior citizen came to mean “elderly.” Senior comes from Latin senex, “old,” the source also of Senate and senile. In the 1930s, a politician helped popularize...
Elizabeth in Burlington, Texas, says she always referred directly to her grandparents using their last names, as in Grandma and Grandpa Bell, or Grandma and Grandpa Van Hoose, but her husband calls his own grandparents Nanaw and Pawpaw. The...
A grandmother in Ferndale, California, wonders about a phrase her own grandmother used. If one of the grandchildren walked into a room and joined a conversation already taking place, she’d exclaim, “Oh! Another country heard from!”...
Sure, there’s Grandma and Grampa, but there’s also Gammy, Bumpy, Dadoo, Gre-Gre, Kiki, Kerkel, Monga, Nee-Nee, Pots, Rah-Rah and Woo-Woo. Martha and Grant talk about the endlessly inventive names grandchildren call their grandparents...
What do people call their grandparents? Sure, there’s Grandma and Grampa, but there’s also Gammy, Bumpy, Dadoo, Gre-Gre, Kiki, Kerkel, Monga, Nee-Nee, Pots, Rah-Rah and Woo-Woo. Martha and Grant talk about the endlessly inventive names...