Some of the world’s most famous writers had to support themselves with day jobs. Martha and Grant discuss well-known authors who toiled away at other trades. Also this week Eskimo kisses, the frozen Puerto Rican treat called a limber, how the...
A native of Southern Pennsylvania has always used the term macadam in place of asphalt. Martha traces the word from an old gravel road to the modern day tarmac. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Macadam” Hello, you have...
Latvian vista means chicken, a tidy example of a false friend, a word that looks familiar in another language but means something else. Carlos says his Latvian family background makes phrases such as Vista Computing Systems, Vista Vision, and Vista...
On an earlier show, Martha mentioned the Middle Eastern detergent called Barf. Martha shares email from listeners who say that although the word spelled the same as English barf, the Farsi pronunciation is somewhat different. This is part of a...
In an earlier episode, we discussed linguistic false friends, those words in foreign languages that look like familiar English words, but mean something quite different. Martha reads an email response from a listener who learned the hard way that in...
Martha shares listener email about linguistic “false friends,” those perplexing words in other languages that look like English words, but mean something completely different. A case in point is the detergent popular in the Middle East...