Hi, all! Our most recent episode is a favorite archive edition: "A Roberta of Flax," with funny collective nouns for plants, plus the game "Telephone," the use of "whenever" with reference to a one-time event, and...
Barack Obama wants to put people to work building roads and bridges. But how about a federal jobs program for out-of-work writers? Also: why do we call it a flight of wine? How did the haircut called a mullet get its name?
green shoot n.— «In recent weeks, “green shoots,” or signs of improvement in the economy (the term was coined by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke), have been eagerly received by investors who’ve been looking for...
This past weekend on "A Way with Words," we mulled over whether part of the recession-busting bailouts the government is proposing should be targeted at reviving the Federal Writers' Project of the 1930s. Get a taste of that, and...
President Barack Obama hopes to boost the economy by pouring federal dollars into efforts to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure, much like the old Works Progress Administration of the 1930s. But how about reviving that other jobs program from...
detailer n.— «The sale of prescription data, in which individual patients’ identities have been removed, has become a lucrative industry. The information is purchased from pharmacy chains and the companies that manage drug benefits for...