An Estival Festival of Summer (minicasts)

Welcome to a special edition of A Way with Words. I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett.

Here’s a word for you. Estival. That’s E-S-T-I-V-A-L. Estival.

Now you don’t see this English word a lot, but it’s an adjective that means of or pertaining to summer.

And it’s a good word to describe the podcast that you’re going to be downloading over the coming weeks.

Here on A Way with Words, we’re going to have what you might call an Estival Festival.

As we do each year, we’re taking our own summer break from recording our regular hour-long episodes.

But as always, we’ll be back with a brand new season of full episodes in early September.

In the meantime, we’ll be bringing you the special podcast-only edition of our show.

In each weekly minicast, we’ll present another intriguing conversation about language that we didn’t have time to share during our regular recording season.

We’ll read a few letters from you, and occasionally Grant and I might just kick back and share with you whatever’s on our minds.

So, Martha, in the meantime, what else will you be doing this summer?

Well, I’m going to be doing some writing, some reading, and I was thinking about going to rowing camp.

Have you ever been to rowing camp?

Lining up chairs in a row?

No.

Rowing camp.

Having lots of rows.

No.

Well, we might do that after class every day, but I love going to rowing camp.

It’s, you know, sculling, oars, boats trying not to fall in the water.

It’s really great.

And I’m looking forward to maybe checking out a camp in Colorado this summer.

How about you?

What are you going to be doing?

I am involved with a brand new super secret project that I can’t talk about.

It does involve language.

That’s all I can say.

Into a nearby phone booth.

Yeah, super secret project.

That’s all.

Are you decoding something for the government?

My tax returns.

Big mystery to me still.

All right.

Well, I can’t wait to hear more about that.

Well, as always, we’ll be checking our email box every day.

So do write us when questions about language occur to you.

You just might end up asking your question on the air later.

Or call us with your thoughts about grammar, slang, regional dialects, old family sayings, word and phrase origins, anything at all involving language.

You can leave us a message anytime, day or night, 1-877-929-9673.

That’s 1-877-Wayword.

And if you just can’t wait to chat with your fellow word lovers, drop by our discussion forum.

That’s at waywordradio.org slash discussion.

Grant and I will be hanging out there, too.

Thanks for listening and for letting us know your thoughts.

We’ll be back next week with another minicast.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

Until next time, here’s to a festive estival period.

She means happy summer, everybody.

What he said.

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