Martha describes a funny linguistic misunderstanding she had while trying to read Harry Potter in Spanish. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Harry Potter en Español” Grant, we were talking earlier in the show about that...
Greetings! In our latest show, we talk about an expression familiar to many African-Americans but little known outside that community, "I couldn't buy a louse in a wrestling jacket." Also, what does it mean if your dog is...
Ahoy! We kicked off the new fall season of "A Way with Words" this weekend, asking, "How much humor and personality can you pack into a 140-character update? A lot, it seems. We discuss funny Twitter feeds, the origins of...
Sandy from Fort Worth grew up hearing Oklahoma relatives call dragonflies snake doctors. It isn’t just a family expression: snake doctor is a traditional folk name, tied to an old tale that dragonflies follow snakes and sew them up when they’re hurt...
Greetings! In this week's archive episode: do you think the Associated Press Stylebook is too stuffy? Then you'll love Fake AP Stylebook, the online send-up that features such faux journalistic advice as "The plural of apostrophe is...
Grant argues that new commercial categories of literature, which include poop fiction, chick lit, K-mart realism, and tart noir resemble the kind of fracturing that already occurred in the music world. Here’s the blog entry that got him...