What Do We Mean by 'Directly' and 'Needs Washed'?

11/13/24 • 9 min

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This episode is about a word and a phrase that are still commonly used in the Appalachian region. First, I'll offer a little refresher on what makes up a dialect and how these words fit in. We'll talk about "directly" as in "I'll be there directly" and the phrase needs + a participle (like washed.) Who uses them and where? What's the history behind them? And how should teachers treat words and phrases like this if they appear in their students' writing?
Sources for this episode: The Yale Grammatical Diversity Project, the Dictionary of American Regional English, and Talking Appalachian: Voice, Identity, and Community (Eds. Clark and Hayward, 2014).

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Places and Spaces: Edgar Allen Poe's Baltimore Home and a Reading of "The Raven"

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In this "Places and Spaces" episode, we'll mark the October anniversary of Edgar Allen Poe's mysterious death with a visit to Poe's house in Baltimore and the cemetery where he is buried.
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Special thanks to Brock Davidson for lending his voice to The Raven. Contact: [email protected].

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