Hello from Indianapolis, where we've just spent a great weekend with the staff and listeners of WFYI 90.1. You can listen to this week's show here: We talked about words we read but didn't know, like "spanghew" and...
This week’s Slang This! contestant is from Esquimalt, British Columbia. She tries to guess the meaning of the slang terms white hat and necklace light. And no, the latter has nothing to do with a “Frankenstein flash.” This is part...
When a proper Southern lady fans herself and exclaims, “I do believe I have the vapors,” what vapors is she talking about, exactly? A caller from Austin, Texas wants to know the origin of this term. Just how did it come to apply to a...
The election’s still months away, but a caller in Okinawa, Japan wonders how the husband of a female U.S. president should be addressed if the husband himself is a former president. The hosts rule out “First Laddie.” This is part...
If you’re still wondering about how far back in time you could go and still understand the English spoken then, check out written and audio excerpts from the poem Beowulf. Also, this NPR report in which host Robert Siegel gets a lesson in...
A Michigander wants to know about the difference between titled and entitled. She’d assumed that a book is titled Gone with The Wind and a person is entitled to compensation for something. Grant and Martha explain it’s a little more...