Do you use paper towels or paper towelling? While a listener insists her husband’s wrong for his use of paper towelling, Grant explains how certain nouns take a gerund ending. For example, clothes derive from clothing, and the side of a house...
A Canadian listener’s boyfriend has a special talent. He can remove his socks, roll them up, and throw them across the room into the laundry basket, all with his toes. She says he has toe dexterity, but wonders if the word dexterous can apply...
Listeners emailed us in response to a call on the sonorous bow-chicka-wow-wow cliche, and we’re glad they did. We learned that country star Trace Adkins has a song called Brown Chicken, Brown Cow that uses puppets to demonstrate just what it...
Does your family have a word for the cardboard tube left over from a roll of toilet paper? A caller says his family refers to them Oh-ah, Oh-ahs. Turns out many families have their own terms for them, including drit-drit, dawda dawda, hoo-hoo, to...
alpha roll n.— «During Cole’s testimony, Jones’ attorney, Jack O’Hale, showed a video of a Baltimore police canine officer performing a technique called an “alpha roll.” The video shows the officer slamming a police dog...
scrap rate n.— «Warner said she has even customers asking her to appraise a roll of nickels for the metal content. But because most dealers pay for what is known as the scrap rate of the day, would-be sellers might not be making quite the...