In L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the scarecrow gets what he calls a bran-new brain. A caller wonders: Is the correct term bran-new or brand-new? This is part of a complete episode.
More from this show
In English, you can express skepticism with the classic saying when pigs fly. In Tagalog, a similar sentiment is expressed with a phrase that translates “when the crow turns white, when the heron turns black,” and there’s a Hungarian phrase that...
Dax in Santa Cruz, California, wonders: Now that we’re into the 21st century, when will people stop saying that initial 20 when referring to a year such as 2028 the way we dropped the 19 in the term 1980s and just started referring to the ’80s? This...