Remember Tom, the guy who’s still trying to recall a word he insists he learned long ago meaning “the points on a compass”? That call generated a boatload of proposed answers from listeners. But one response stood out above all the...
A caller asks a delicate question about the phrase “blue bark shipment,” a term involving the transport of deceased members of the military. Martha and Grant discuss this puzzling expression and the challenge of tracking down its...
A caller sends Grant and Martha off on a slang-infested trip about ways of saying a fast good-bye. Listen as they blow pop, popcorn, and taco stands by way of author Jim Harrison, the comic strip Funky Winkerbean, and a Warhol hanger-on. As a small...
Discover the joys (and temptations!) of two new books of collected wisdom: “The Yale Book of Quotations” edited by Fred Shapiro, and James Geary’s “Guide to the World’s Great Aphorists.” Grant explains why leafing...
When you were a child and wanted to lay claim to something, what did you say? Did you call “dibs”? Or “hosey” it? A caller is curious about another verb used in such situations: “finnie.” Grant explains this...
Martha reminisces about her family‘s mountain roots while dipping into the delicious vocabulary of Southernisms found in The Dictionary of Smoky Mountain English. When ya’ll listen to this one, you’ll find out what a...
