Tagged: Anne Curzan

On this week’s edition of “That’s What They Say,” host Rina Miller and University of Michigan Professor Anne Curzan revisit regional variations in spoken English and offer up even more fun and often puzzling expressions. 

“For people who are from parts of New York or New Jersey, they will stand on line rather than in line...and for the people who say that makes no sense, the answer is that prepositions don’t always make sense and this is just regional variation," says Curzan.

Another expression that may not make sense to most of us is: drinking a cabinet.

“If you’re from Rhode Island you can drink a cabinet…in Rhode Island, a cabinet is a milkshake," Curzan explains.

Okay, so what to you call those balls of dust hiding underneath the bed? Dust bunnies or woofinpoofs?

The Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE)  has documented over 170 different variations for those balls of lint. And, some variations take on hilarious names.

For most of us, the Microsoft Word spell checker is a godsend. It helps correct our failed attempt for spelling words like vinaigrette or renaissance.

However, Word's grammar checker is a whole different story. Mostly because of that cursed green squiggly line under a word that signals we've made a grammar error. One of the most frequent and frustrating corrections involves the correct use of that or which.

University of Michigan Professor of English Anne Curzan and host Rina Miller discuss these unspoken grammar rule snafus on this edition of  "That's What They Say."

"The grammar checker is trying to enforce a rule about that and which, which English speakers have never followed, as far as we can tell," says Curzan.

The comma may be a very small  punctuation mark, but people often have very strong feelings about how it should, and should not be used.

On this edition of "That's What They Say," host Rina Miller and University of Michigan Professor Anne Curzan discuss the Oxford comma, semicolons and breaking rules.

Listen to the full segment above.