A listener in Albany, New York, wonders who decides which historical personages deserve mention a dictionary, and how editors decide which of those people merit a photo or illustration? Grant explains the process by which lexicographers handle these...
A listener in Port Washington, Wisconsin, asks: When is it appropriate to get rid of an old edition of a dictionary? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Discarding and Replacing Dictionaries” Hi, you have A Way with Words. Good...
A Chicago-area listener wonders: When dictionaries go from print to online, are any words removed? What’s the best print dictionary to replace the old one on her dictionary stand? For more about dictionaries and their history, Grant recommends the...
A Fort Worth, Texas, couple disagrees about how to pronounce the word gymnast, but both JIM-nist and the more evenly stressed JIM-NAST are fine. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Pronouncing Gymnast” Hello, you have A Way with Words...
On our Facebook group someone asked, “Does anyone else get frustrated by the second p in apoptosis?” Now you know there’s a second p in apoptosis, which of course you already knew is also known as programmed cell death. This is part of a complete...
If it’s no skin off your nose, there’s no harm done. This idiom, which the American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms suggests may come from boxing, means the same thing as no skin off my back or no skin off my ear. If you have other idioms in this...
