We take our voices for granted, but it’s truly miraculous that we communicate complex thoughts simply by moving our mouths while exhaling. A fascinating new book reveals the science, history, and linguistics involved in human speech. And although...
The gallywampus is a large, wobbly insect that looks like an overgrown mosquito. These long-legged creatures and others like them go by lots of funny-sounding names, including gallinipper, gabber napper, and granny-nipper. This is part of a complete...
A nine-year-old from Yuma, Arizona, wants to know the origin of catawampus. So do etymologists. Catawampus means “askew,” “awry,” or “crooked.” We do know the word has been around for more than a century and is spelled many different ways, such as...
Sure, it’s scary to send your writing to a literary agent. But pity the poor agent who must wade through hundreds of terrible query letters a week! One of them shares excerpts from those hilariously bad query letters on a blog called SlushPile Hell...
Catawampus, meaning “askew,” can be spelled at least 15 different ways. It likely derives from the English word cater, meaning “diagonal. ” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Catawampus” Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hi, this is...
When something’s crooked, some people describe it as catawampus, cattywampus, or kittywampus. A caller wonders about the historical roots of all these words. Anything to do with felines? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of...