Debra in Gates, North Carolina, says that her husband tries to do things right the first time because, as he puts it, he doesn’t like licking the cat over. To have to lick the cat over is to have to repeat a laborious process for a second time...
It’s a common superstition: do not split a pole. That is, if two people are walking down the street, they shouldn’t each walk around a different side of a lamppost, telephone pole, or mailbox. But if they do, there’s a remedy: just...
“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.
A caller named Todd says that when people meet him for the first time, they sometimes call him Scott, even if he’s wearing a nametag with his real name on it. It’s happened too many times to be a coincidence, he says, and wonders if...
Stories From The Onion In this week’s episode, Martha and Grant discuss not-to-be-believed articles about language from the satirical newspaper The Onion, including one headlined “Underfunded Schools Forced to Cut Past Tense from...
What do you call that jarring sensation when you see a radio personality for the first time, and he looks nothing like what you expected? The hosts talked about it in a past episode. Listeners responded with more words for this phenomenon. This is...