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

Howdy, long time no chat! It's another newsletter from A Way with Words.

Well, there are big goings-on here. Besides Martha and Grant gearing up for a season of brand-new shows, Grant just finished a 3000-mile move from New York to the San Francisco Bay Area, meaning Martha and Grant are in the same state now, though still not in the same studio.

Grant and his family are in the lovely town of San Mateo. He'll be broadcasting from the studios of KQED in San Francisco, one of the finest public radio stations in North America.

However, "A Way with Words" isn't yet carried by KQED. Your calls and letters can help make it happen.

Address letters with your variations on "I want A Way with Words!" by fax to (415) 553-2241, by email to mailto:fm@kqed.org

You can find other recent episodes you might have missed here:

https://waywordradio.org/category/episodes/

Here's something that ticks us off: Apple decided that a dictionary application for the iPhone was objectionable and removed it from the iPhone application store. Why? It contains offensive words. Never mind that other dictionaries already on the iPhone store contain the same "dirty" words. More about it here:

http://daringfireball.net/2009/08/ninjawords

In our view, all dictionaries for adults should contain these words and if someone is old enough to have an iPhone or an iTouch, then they're old enough to handle these words, too. Besides which, you have to *search* for them to find them. They don't just pop out at you and go "boo!"

"Positive anymore" is a subject we've touched on a few times, but you'll still enjoy Jan Freeman's excellent explanation. She also tackles "assuage" and "consumerism."

http://tinyurl.com/npnkpp

Nancy Friedman explains that Twitter's problem is that the company uses the wrong language to talk about the wrong things.

http://tinyurl.com/cmatvh

Matthew Shaer at the Christian Science Monitor rips into "Radio Shack" for rebranding itself as "The Shack." Don't they know what "shack" means?

http://tinyurl.com/mvx6lt

Harvard University has trademarked a number of curious phrases, including "Lessons learned" and "Ask what you can do"--the latter a direct borrowing from a famous speech by John F. Kennedy.

http://tinyurl.com/m6j8g6

That's all for this week.

Toodle-oo,

Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett
Co-hosts of A Way with Words
https://waywordradio.org
words@waywordradio.org

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