When somebody sneezes, you say “bless you” or “gesundheit,” but what about when someone coughs? Grant believes that if anything, the cougher ought to say “excuse me.” A commenter on Paul Davidson’s blog sets...
What do you call it when you’re about to jump into a conversation but someone beats you to it? Mary, a caller and self-described introvert from Indianapolis, calls it getting seagulled, inspired by an episode of The Simpsons in which nerdy...
Step into a traditional English pub, it’ll be a while before everyone knows your name. A long while, in fact. The rules of conversational engagement are different in the UK from what you’d find in a place like Cheers. Kate Fox’s...
When someone finds out where you’re from, do they ask if you know so-and-so? The cynics out there may refer to this as the six degrees of stupid, but even urban dwellers can admit that the answer is “yes” more often than the odds...
A riddle from A World’s Treasury of Riddles by Phil Cousineau asks, “A riddle, a riddle, I suppose, a thousand eyes and never a nose.” The trick depends on hearing eyes as something besides a face part. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript...
Um, are you, like, one of those people who, get, like, really annoyed, by, you know, like, lots of filler words in, you know, like, conversation? If it’s any comfort, there’s a great term for this. Can you say embololalia?