Mark in Panama City, Florida, asks about kowtow, after a boss wondered what it meant when someone said not to kowtow to him. The word entered English in the early 1800s from Chinese words in a Beijing dialect meaning “knock head,” a literal image of...
Anagrams, rebuses, cryptograms — Martha and Grant swap stories about the games that first made them realize that playing with words and letters can be fun. Also this week, what’s a jitney supper and where do you eat graveyard stew? The hosts...
Gina from Dallas, Texas, asks about a family Scrabble dispute with her English-teacher sister: is the comparative form stupider, or should it be more stupid? Usage guides allow both forms, along with the superlative stupidest. Longer adjectives...
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...
A caller wants to settle a friendly argument: Is something not worth debating called a moot point or a mute point? Here’s the scene from the Friends episode that Grant mentions, in which Joey misunderstands the term as moo point. This is part...
May-December marriage n.— «Now, with the possible candidacy of Fred D. Thompson, the grandfatherly actor and former Republican senator from Tennessee, whose second wife is almost a quarter-century his junior, comes a less palatable...
