A brickfielder is a hot, dry wind in Southern Australia. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “A Blowing Brickfielder” Grant, do you know what a brick fielder is? A center fielder who doesn’t have to move when a pot...
A listener from California says her family’s way of remarking on rain is to mention the space between falling drops. So a 12-inch rain means there’s about a foot between one drop and the next. Tricky, huh? This is part of a complete episode...
Martha went on an overnight backpacking trip and came back with a new word: triboluminescence, which refers to the glow created by rubbing together two pieces of quartz. The tribo- is from a Greek root meaning “to rub,” the source also...
Insensible losses, in the world of medicine, are things your body loses which you simply don’t sense. A prime example is the water vapor you see coming out of your body when you exhale in cold weather, but aren’t aware of when it’s...
Tautologies in names are pretty funny, like the Sahara Desert, which basically means “Desert Desert,” or the country of East Timor, which in Malay means “East East.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of...
Julianne in San Diego wondered why people say desert island instead of deserted island. In that phrase, desert keeps an older sense, meaning “wild and uninhabited.” A desert island can be lush and green, like the island in The Swiss Family Robinson...