It’s been a while since Moon Unit Zappa and the Valley Girl craze slipped out of the popular eye, which is likely why the sarcastic quip, “I’m so sure!” had one listener tripped up. This is part of a complete episode...
A Dallas caller asked whether the grainy stuff that collects in the corners of your eyes overnight goes by different names in different families or regions. The medical term is rheum, from Greek for “to flow,” but many people prefer sleepy sand, eye...
What do you call a guy with a bald pate? A chrome dome? Maybe the lucky fellow is sporting a solar panel for a sex machine. Also, which would you rather open: a can of worms or Pandora’s box? Plus, ordinary vs. ornery, versing vs. versus...
Editors are great for picking up those double the’s and similar mistakes, known as eye-skip errors. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Eyeskip Errors” You know when you’re editing and you think you’re...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski has a magical puzzle, the answers to which contain the word magic. For example, a motel sign in the ’70s might have included the enticement Magic Fingers, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez was a practitioner of literature featuring...
A question from a listener on the A Way with Words Facebook page has Martha musing about the entomological and etymological connections between the word pupil and the pupal stage of an insect’s life.