The early 20th-century Spanish poet Antonio Machado has a beautiful poem about finding one’s way. The translation in this segment is by Anna Rosenwong and María José Giménez. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Antonio...
A New Hampshire listener recalls that as a boy, when he talked friends within earshot of his mother and said referred to her as she, his mother would pipe up with “she, being the cat’s mother.” It’s an old expression...
We talk about something occurring beforehand, so why don’t we talk about something happening afterhand? Actually, afterhand goes all the way back to 15th-century English, even though it’s not that commonly used today. This is part of a...
Does the expression to harp on, as in “to nag,” have anything to do with the stringed instrument one plays by plucking? Yes! As early as the 16th century to harp all of one string meant to keep playing the same single note monotonously...
In a powerful essay on white privilege, Good Black News editor Lori Lakin Hutcherson includes the term chandelier pain to describe how painful accumulated slights can be. Medical professionals use the term chandelier pain to refer to the result of...
A caller from New York City wonders about his grandmother’s use of the word says rather than said when she’s telling a story about something that happened in the past. It’s a form of the historical present tense that helps describe...