“If I agreed with you, we’d both be wrong.” Listeners share some of their favorite paraprosdokians. It’s not the first time Martha and Grant discussed paraprosdokians. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of...
In this week’s episode, “It was bright cold day in April and the clocks were striking thirteen.” Martha and Grant discuss their favorite first lines from novels. Also this week, palmer-housing, beanplating, meeting cute, bad...
Some listeners are madly in love with oxymorons, and they continue to share their favorites. One listener has a great T-shirt that reads “An oxymoron a day keeps reality away.” Another says his favorite oxymoron is “Dodge Ram...
Downton Abbey, a program featured on Masterpiece Theater, provided a handful of colorful expressions that date surprisingly far back. “Like it or lump it,” meaning “deal with it,” is found at least as early as 1830 and takes...
Is that a winklehawk in your pants? A listener shares this word for those L-shaped rips in your trousers, from an old Dutch term for “a carpenter’s L-shaped tool.” And Grant has a new favorite term, motherwit, meaning “the...
O heavy lightness! Serious vanity! Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms! Andrew in Dallas enjoys oxymorons, expressions that yoke contradictory ideas into a single phrase. The word oxymoron is from Greek for “pointedly foolish,” and everyday...