Snout-fair means “good-looking person,” throttlebottom is a “dishonest public official,” and “ejectamenta” refers to “material ejected from a volcano.” Christine sent 31 such rare and obsolete words from Delafield, Wisconsin. She belongs to the...
Poet and teacher Frances Klein reports that a friend refers to the “overemphasized voice people use to read poems” as spoken Garamond. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Declamatory Font” I saw a tweet I...
Mudlark: In Search of London’s Past Along the River Thames (Bookshop| Amazon) relates the amazing tale, told many places, of Thomas James Cobden-Sanderson, a bookbinder who developed the famous Doves Type. To prevent the moveable type from...
A 50-something boss in Reno, Nevada, wants suggestions on speaking with and writing for his younger co-workers. When does your own communication style make you sound out-of-date, and when does using younger folks’ slang make you sound like...
You walk into a used bookstore, or pull down an old volume at the library, and there it is: The smell of old books. If you detect notes of vanilla in that intoxicating scent, there’s a reason. Also, why some people think the word awesome is...
Proofreading is a skill to be learned, but you can start with tricks like printing out the text, reading aloud, or moving down the page with a ruler, one line at a time. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Proofreading...