You know how you can feel full after a meal, but then dessert arrives and you suddenly find a little more room? The Japanese have a term for this: betsubara, which literally means other stomach. In English, people often call it their dessert stomach...
Although in English we have the terms orphan, widow, and widower, our language lacks a one-word term that means “bereaved parent.” A few other languages have a word for this, including Hebrew sh’khol and Sanskrit vilomah. This is...
A Dallas, Texas, caller says his girlfriend from a rural part of his state has an unusual way of pronouncing certain words. Email sounds like EE-mill, toenail like TOW-nell, and tell-tale like TELL-tell. These sounds are the result of a well-known...
A Dallas listener says he was confused at first when a friend from rural North Dakota reported coming home and finding a moose in his kitchen. Only later did he learn what difference the so-called Canadian raising of a vowel can make. More about...
Do you say something happened on accident or by accident? Is text-messaging destroying our kids’ writing ability? Where do horseradish, zarf, and ignoramus come from?
Another riddle: Why is “O” the noisiest of all the vowels? This is part of a complete episode.
