Did you hear about the explosion in the French cheese factory? (If you don’t like puns, brace yourself.) This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “French Cheese Pun” You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we...
The French have a musical term for paperclip. They call it le trombone. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Le Trombone” Grant, remember when we were talking about the French term for pie chart? Yeah, but I don’t remember what the...
Do Americans use the same sign language as the British? And what do Japanese people use instead of umm? Plus, why do we vote at polling places? What goes into file 13? All this, a word quiz, commode vs. toilet, saditty and bougie, and cute stuff...
Marty from Philadelphia asks when gay shifted from meaning “merry” or “happy” to meaning “homosexual,” and why that particular word took on the newer sense. English borrowed gay from French in the 1300s for “merry” or “jolly,” while late-1800s hobo...
A woman in Racine, Wisconsin, says her father and his fellow bus drivers always pronounced the word schedule as “skeh-DOO-lee.” Is that an accepted pronunciation? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Skehdoolee” Hi, you have A Way with...
You’ve seen people indicate emphasis by putting a period after each of several words, and capitalizing the first letter of each word. A Michigan listener wonders how this stylistic trick arose. Her question was prompted by this description of French...
