Mark from Redmond, Washington, asks for the term for a person whose name happens to fit their line of work, such as CNN broadcaster William Headline, a preacher named James God, or the physician Dr. Hurt. Such names are called aptronyms or aptonyms...
If you’re of a certain age, you may be surprised when someone asks you “hit me up”—and even more so when it turns out he’s asking you to call him on his cell phone. Grant explains how “hit me up” began to take on...
“Full fathom five thy father lies…” When the Bard wrote these immortal words, he was talking about the word fathom as a measure of distance. But a Chicago caller can’t quite fathom the meaning of the verb “to fathom...
When you get to the end of a wonderful book, your first impulse is to tell someone else about it. In this week’s episode, Martha and Grant discuss what they’ve been reading and the delights of great prose. You’ll find information...
Feel like having a little “hair of the dog”? Grant and Martha explain what dog hair has to do with hangover cures. And what do you call it when random objects form a recognizable image, like a cloud resembling a bunny, or the image of Elvis in...
Dude, how’d we ever start using the word dude? The Big Grantbowski traces the word’s origin—it’s over 125 years old. Here’s a poem about dandy dudes from 1883, the year the word zoomed into common use. Ben Zimmer at Visual...
