That's What They Say

If something is crummy, then we could also call it lousy, which gives us a clue about how crummy came to mean what it means.

When we're talking about a small book for teaching children to read, or really any short book that introduces a topic, there are two competing pronunciations of the word for that book.

The word "kid" is already informal, and now we have the word "kiddo" living alongside it.

When it comes to media, here's the message: It's time for a truce between the singular agreement people and the plural agreement people.

Oh goody, it's time to talk about all the goodies!

If you are trying to do good in the world, some would now argue it's better to be a “good doer” than a “do gooder.”

It is less ambiguous to say “I badly need to shower” than it is to say “I need to shower badly.”

There's the hair on our heads and the hares in our yards, and there has been some confusion about which one is part of the expression "harebrained."

We can presume things, which may or may not be presumptuous. We can also assume things, which then raises the question of whether things can be "assumptuous."

For those of us of a certain age, if we whack a tennis ball or a softball too hard or at the wrong angle, we could throw our back out of whack.

We sometimes talk about stealing or robbery in terms of "lifting" things, and this is relevant to "heists" as well.

We will never know some of the informal language that was bandied about among speakers in the time of Beowulf.

There are so many interesting bits of language in the world, we can't help but notice. The question is, when you notice someone saying something interesting, should you point it out?

In a criminal case, you just might need a linguist.

There's competitive forensics, but there's also forensic medicine, forensic accounting, and forensic linguistics too.

The word "deadpan" is on the rise, as multiple parts of speech. That "pan" is related to the historical expression “shut your pan."

Not all of us use the word 'whenever' in exactly the same way, and people are noticing.

It's 100% true that people online are asking about sentences like, “I got an a hundred on the test.”

The way some people use "resonate" doesn't resonate with all of our listeners.

We can sweep the floor, sweep the board, sweep the stakes, sweep the series – and maybe it will even be called a "clean sweep."

While you may not find “comfortability” in many standard dictionaries yet, it is out there in circulation with “comfortableness.”

Sometimes we're left in the lurch. It's probably fair to say that most of us don't know where that lurch is.

It appears that some of those bad or uneasy feelings we may feel in the pit of our stomach have become a pit in our stomach.

It's that time again. With 2024 behind us, we can vote on the word of the year.

We can pepper our food or pepper our speech. If the mood strikes us, we can be peppy in a pep rally sort of way.

There's examples all over the the place of people using "there's" before a plural noun. In fact, we just gave you one.

As 2024 comes to a close, the kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs football team gave us a reason to use the verb "doink."

We can still reach out the car window to grab a parking ticket, but today, "reaching out" can also mean "pinging" someone to make a connection.

The words "decimate" and "unique" are quintessential examples of how a word's meaning can shift from its etymological roots.

"Ornery" seems like an ordinary enough word, but its link to "ordinary" might surprise people.

As listeners wait with bated breath, we will not dilly dally or shilly shally to get to this lightning round.

Looking at late 19th century language peeves can often point to a change in progress, but not always.

Of all the topics we could cover this week on That's What They Say, we chose these ones over those ones.

A sea change can now be caused by many things other than the sea, and some of its dramatic effects have been lost in the process.

We're going to try not to touch the third rail, but we are going to talk about it.

Major League Baseball playoffs and football tailgate season both mean the smell of hot dogs is in the air.

We don't encounter petards very often anymore. That's unless we're being, metaphorically speaking, “hoisted with our own petard.”

There are plenty of people out there who see "utilize" as a pretentious substitute for "use." However, some people are completely comfortable utilizing the verb "utilize."

There's the “yea” in voting “yea” or “nay," and then there's the celebratory “Yay!" Oh yeah, there's also "yeah."

Whoa, whoa, whoa. There are a lot of ways to spell "whoa."

You could say, "I don't like him singing," or you could say, "I don't like his singing." Believe it or not, some folks have very strong feelings about which of those is correct.

It's all so grammatically straight forward in the present tense if you plead innocent. Later on though, should you tell people you "pleaded" innocent or "pled" innocent?

The sign at the grocery store said “can goods,” not “canned goods.”

We keep track of things, we lose track of things, we run track, and listen to tracks. Sometimes though, we confuse “track” with “tract.”

Alls our listener wanted to know is what's going on with the “alls” in “alls I know.”

Technically, not everyone you buy real estate from is a realtor.

The summer sped by and the car sped off, but perhaps we speeded up the process.

A bare-faced lie may also be bald. Sometimes, it may even be bold.

It doesn't seem like coming up with a response to "thank you" should be that complicated. When you think about it though, there are a lot of options.

Even for speakers who feel solid about the distinction between "lie" and "lay," they may lose that distinction when "low" is added to the mix.

All right, last week, we got distracted by the versatility of "all right." This week, we look at why spelling it as one word, "alright," makes some people really mad.