Ron in Grand Rapids, Michigan, grew up hearing relatives ask for a receipt when they wanted a recipe, as in getting the instructions for a good cake. That usage is old-fashioned but well established. Both receipt and recipe go back to Latin...
Turn the music down, it doesn’t need to be on boydog! Have you heard this synonym for “the highest level”? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Music on Boydog” Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hi, Martha. This is Kate. How are you...
Our Quiz Guy John Chaneski has a game called Word Scouts. In order to earn your badge, you’ll have to know the architectural term Bauhaus and the flower that’s also a past tense verb. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Word Scouts...
A Texas listener recounts an ongoing debate in her family’s kitchen over the exact definition of the word spatula. Is it the kitchen tool used to spread icing and level measuring cups? Something you use to flip a pancake? That item with the plastic...
If a restaurant menu states, “We cook off our potatoes,” what in the heck does that mean? A truck driver who encountered such an announcement at a roadside cafe is still puzzling over what it means to “cook off” a tuber. He phones in to hash it out.
ratpack n.— «It is a helicopter ride away from a military hospital, food comes from 24-hour ration packs, known to soldiers as ratpacks or compo and far from fresh, and the water is almost exclusively for drinking and cooking.» —“‘I think this is...