What common English word can mean “reddish,” “whitish,” or “bluish”? Answer: livid. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “The Many Colors of Livid” We heard from Dan O’Neill in...
Buck up, meaning toughen up or get it together, has a long history stemming from the days when travelling trunks had buckles on them that needed to be fastened. Over the years, variations like “buckle down” and “buckle” have...
Hey! It's another newsletter from "A Way with Words," which this week was called "entertainingly erudite" by William Safire in the New York Times. Suh-weet! Our latest erudition came in the form of talk about "apple...
Happy holidays to everyone! Your gift is another episode of A Way with Words. It's one-size-fits-all. This week we chewed over whether "cotton-picking" is racist, unintentionally funny headlines, a holiday-song quiz...
Welcome to another newsletter from A Way with Words. Over the weekend we talked more about political language, "hair of the dog," "a fish rots from the head down," and "pareidolia." We also posted another language...
A San Diego woman who’s homeschooling her children wonders if there’s a formula that explains why nouns like teacher and writer end in “er,” while others, like professor and conductor, end in “or.” She suspects it...