This week: Do you ever find yourself less-than-specific about your age? Listeners share some of their favorite phrases for fudging that number, like: “Oh, I’m 29, plus shipping and handling.” Also in this episode: • Since ancient...
A listener has been baffled for years by a riddle told a German friend. It goes, “What’s the difference between a frog? Answer: The greener it is, the faster it swims.” It’s an example of an antiwitz or “anti...
Choosing language that helps resolve interpersonal conflict. Sometimes a question is really just a veiled form of criticism and understanding the difference between “ask culture” and “guess culture” can help you know how to...
An eighth-grade history teacher from Denton, Texas, is teaching about colonial America, and wonders if there’s a difference between the phrases to found a colony or establish a colony. This is part of a complete episode.
A caller with a 25-year-old parrot wonders: How much language do birds really understand? Plus, Knock-knock. Who’s there? Boo. Well… you can guess the rest. But there was a time when these goofy jokes were a brand-new craze sweeping the nation...
What’s the difference between butter beans, lima beans, and wax beans? The answer depends on where you live and what dialect you speak. This is part of a complete episode.