Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

She's a pickin' and he's a grinnin'--it's another newsletter from "A Way with Words." Salut!

Oh, hey, sure, it was a rerun this past weekend. A good one, though, with a brand-new word quiz to boot. It has the follow-up to our discussion of "going commando," chatter about where on the body one might find "possible," canvassing, go-aheads, and what a child with two mommies should call them.

Pop this baby in your MP3 player and let 'er rip:

https://waywordradio.org/almost-up-to-possible/

Martha's latest minicast is a discussion of "Hobson's choice." Who was he? Does he know Sophie? Find out!

https://waywordradio.org/whats-a-hobsons-choice/

Next week in North Texas we'll be doing a special two-hour episode during KERA's pledge drive. TWO HOURS! We've got some good stuff planned, including a special appearance by author and humorist Roy Blount Jr., who will be playing our slang quiz. We'll also have a very southern focus to the calls and questions. Give it a listen and make sure to let KERA know that you appreciate what the station does for your brain. If you fork over a little humble dosh you can get signed copies of our books as thank-you gifts.

http://kera.org/radio/

That pledge show will play in different weeks in different markets, by the way, so if you don't hear it on your station, you'll know why.

In March we talked about some different ways that people were learning English overseas (<http://tinyurl.com/english-abroad&gt;). Here's something similar: in China, Walt Disney Co. now operates English-teaching schools for children.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124017964526732863.html

What's your favorite phoneme? Check out this discussion on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=2204464345&topic=2183

And take this quiz: "What phoneme are you?"

http://quiz.applatform.com/track/?i=346562&h=c5b2c4f6f1ca6b763d3d039cf0f99111

We love little furry creatures, so we're delighted to recommend a podcast for those of you with dogs in the family. Jolanta Benal is a certified pet dog trainer who now records a podcast as "The Dog Trainer." She uses science that supports dog-friendly, human-friendly training, with plenty of rewards and fun for the animal. Humans will find in her podcasts useful, wholesome tidbits about things like teaching a dog not to bark when someone knocks at the door or training a puppy to chew on the right things. Makes us want to go reread all the James Herriot books.

Listen to Jolanta here:

http://dogtrainer.quickanddirtytips.com/

Best wishes,

Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett