“Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.” This kind of sudden, surprising turn in a sentence is called a paraprosdokian. Martha and Grant trade some examples. This is part of a...
On an earlier show, Martha mentioned the Middle Eastern detergent called Barf. Martha shares email from listeners who say that although the word spelled the same as English barf, the Farsi pronunciation is somewhat different. This is part of a...
Latvian vista means chicken, a tidy example of a false friend, a word that looks familiar in another language but means something else. Carlos says his Latvian family background makes phrases such as Vista Computing Systems, Vista Vision, and Vista...
A Dallas listener says he was confused at first when a friend from rural North Dakota reported coming home and finding a moose in his kitchen. Only later did he learn what difference the so-called Canadian raising of a vowel can make. More about...
In an earlier episode, we discussed linguistic false friends, those words in foreign languages that look like familiar English words, but mean something quite different. Martha reads an email response from a listener who learned the hard way that in...
What do you call a party that new parents throw to introduce a baby to family and friends? Kiss-and-cry? Try sip-and-see. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Sip-and-See” Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hello, this is...