At sports events in North America, we enthusiastically root for the home team, right? But a woman from Kenosha, Wisconsin, says an Aussie told her that they most assuredly don’t do that Down Under. There, he tells her, rooting means...
Phil in Indianapolis asks about the verb vet, now common in political talk. It comes from veterinarian. The term was in horse racing by the mid-1800s, when a vet checked horses before a race to make sure they were sound and hadn’t been tampered with...
Everyone knows the term stereotype, but did you ever stop to wonder what the word has to do with stereos? Not much, really. But it does derive from the world of printing. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Etymology of...
phenomenalia n.— «What hath The Wiggles wrought? In the etymology of pop-culture phenomenalia, crystallized with the Aussie happy-feet band in the colored skivvies, born of the wistful singalongs in the original MM Club—M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U...
It started as a typo for “own,” now it’s entrenched in online slang. A Kentucky caller is curious about pwn. It rhymes with “own” and means “to defeat” or “to triumph over.” Our hosts talk about...
Pass the Gatorade! Martha and Grant work up a sweat in this episode as they tackle a sports quiz and lob vocabulary questions back and forth. They also settle a family dispute about the pronunciation of eco-friendly and unlock the etymology of...