Want to create an interactive transcript for this episode?
Podcast: A Way with Words - language, linguistics, and callers from all over
Episode: How About a Game of Meehonkey? - 16 Feb. 2009
Description: Time for another linguistic mystery. In what part of the country would you be likely to hear older folks using the following phrases? 'He sure was mommucking his little brother.' And: 'Why, those kids used to play meehonkey every afternoon!' And: 'Ohhhhhhh, I was quamished in the stomach.' Give up? The place you're likely to hear the words mommucking, meehonkey, and quamished is called Ocracoke. It's just off the North Carolina coast -- one of the Outer Banks barrier islands. Settled by the British in the...