This week it’s butterflies, belly flowers, plot bunnies, foxes, and cuckoos. Also, writing advice from Mark Twain and a wonderful bit of prose from Sara Pennypacker’s book Pax. And are there word origins? Well, does a duck swim? We’ll...
A woman and her 10-year-old daughter are looking for a word that describes being excited but anxious. It’s not exactly twitterpated, and the Southernismlike a worm in hot ashes is vivid, but a phrase and not a single word. If a single word for...
In an earlier episode, we talked about the butterfly mating behavior known as hilltopping, in which male butterflies try to appeal to females by flying as high as possible. A listener in Fairbanks, Alaska, reports that the term hilltopping is used...
Hiking in the mountains, Martha kept noticing butterflies at about 4,000-to-5,000 feet above sea level. Those butterflies are hilltopping. It’s when male butterflies of many species go to high points to advertise their fortitude and genes to the...
A caller suspects that the word butterfly derives from a reversal of the expression “flutter by.” But is it? Her question leads to a discussion of butterfly behavior and a handy five-letter word that means “caterpillar poop.”...