Books were rare treasures in the Middle Ages, painstakingly copied out by hand. So how to protect them from theft? Scribes sometimes added a curse to the first page of those books that was supposed to keep thieves away — and some were as vicious as...
Our discussion about pangrams inspired this one from a listener: Quickly vacuuming six juicy blobs of cheese whiz is definitely a very messy proposition. Indeed. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Cheesy Pangram” We are...
How do actors bring Shakespeare’s lines to life so that modern audiences immediately understand the text? One way is to emphasize the names of people and places at certain points. That technique is called billboarding. And: Anyone for an...
In a previous episode, five-year-old Quinn asked why the letter Q is so often followed by the letter U. A new children’s book seems to have been written just for her. Q and U Call It Quits is a funny story about the chaos that ensues for the...
Quinn from Excelsior, Minnesota, is five years old — well, five and three-quarters, as she points out. She wonders why the letter Q is so often followed by U. In Old English, the alphabet didn’t include the letter Q. The word quick, for...
We talked about pangrams in an earlier episode, which prompted a delicious one from Laura in Colt’s Neck, New Jersey: I quickly mixed up a dozen jelly donuts for the big variety show. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “A...