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

Hey, will you look at that! It's the new A Way with Words website!

We've made it easier to search, switched to a new way of playing shows in the browser, updated it to look much better on smartphones and tablets, overhauled the episode pages, updated the forums, and a whole lot more.

Read our blog post announcing all the changes, and a second blog post announcing that we've merged Grant's Double-Tongued Dictionary into the radio show website.

Click on the image to check everything out:

Catch Up on Episodes
Since we last sent you a newsletter, we've broadcast a bunch of new episodes. Did you catch these?
• What's a Hipster? is what we called the episode where we handled just that question, plus we mused about sawbuck, shoestring budgets, lief and liefer, cabbie slang, and more. Listen or download the MP3.
• Crazy Crossword Clues was the episode in which we cracked open the subject of whether or not folks should learn cursive writing. We also talked about new obfuscated lyrics for children's songs, battle buddy, let the rain settle it, ain't no hill for a stepper like you, and more. Listen or download the MP3.
• Lousy With Diamonds opens with mnemonics, moves on to words for being drunk, decodes a very slangy 1946 police report, and more. Listen or download the MP3.

Language Tidbits
• Would a color-coded edition enhance your experience of William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury? Now you can find out.

• Do we need to fill a lexical gap? What's the opposite of an environmentalist? John McIntyre has some background. Suggestions so far include: industrialist, ecodetrementalist, toxicwaster, conservationist, conservative, exploitationist, polluter, novironmentalist, solomentalist, and more. See the rest and leave yours on our Facebook page.

• Look at these beautiful illustrations of unusual and rarely spoken words by James and Michael Fitzgerald of Cork City, Ireland. (They're for sale here.) Below is acersecomic, a person whose hair has never been cut. Michael Quinion has background on the strange word.

Yours with frequency,

   &     

Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett
co-hosts of A Way with Words

Photo by Carl Drougge. Used under a Creative Commons license.