Remember Tom Swifties, those puns where the adverb matches the quote? How about this one: “I love reading Moby-Dick,” Tom said superficially. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “More Tom Swifties” Grant, I come...
Grant and Martha have summer reading suggestions. Grant’s going through books by great women in show business — Tallulah Bankhead, Mindy Kaling, and Tina Fey. Martha finally got a Kindle, and is starting with Herman Melville’s classic...
“They shot the white girl first.” That’s how Toni Morrison’s novel, Paradise, begins, and it’s a great example of an irresistible first line. Martha shares others sent in by listeners. She also reads from a Michael...
Some novels grab you from the get-go. “I am an invisible man.” “Call me Ishmael.” “The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting.” Martha...
“Well, that was odder than Dick’s hatband!” A caller says his mother always used that term. Now he wants to know: Who was Dick? And what was so odd about his headwear? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Odder...
It’s the Moby Dick of etymology: Where do we get the phrase “the whole nine yards”? A pediatrician in North Carolina wonders if it derives from a World War II phrase involving “nine yards” of ammunition. Grant and...