In Appalachia, if you ignore better choices before choosing a lesser one, such as a mate, you might be said to fly all over a daisy field and settle on a cow pile or flit like a butterfly from flower to flower and land on a cow crap. This is part of...
Dana in Reno, Nevada, wants a word for that moment when you’re playing cards or a board game and you draw what would have been the perfect card or tile for the previous turn you played. She suggests post-perfect pickup. Might there be others? Maybe...
When it comes to tattoos, passages of text are an increasingly popular alternative to images. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Text Tattoos” You’re listening to A Way with Words, a show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant...
A teacher discusses whether the correct form is feel bad or feel badly. By the way, the Latin proverb Martha mentions here is, “Qui docet, discet.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Bad vs. Badly” Hello, you have A Way with Words...
spooty adj. bad, crappy. Also n., something that is bad or crappy. Editorial Note: The use of spooty in the first citation is probably a typographical error for spotty, meaning “pimply.” Etymological Note: Probably popularized by the animated...
janky adj. inferior, bad, weird. Also jinky, jainky, jankie, jankey. Editorial Note: The connection between janky and jinky is uncertain, but as their usage seems interchangeable, I am defining them as a single term. (source: Double-Tongued...
