There’s an old joke running around that goes as follows, “Lost: Bald, one-eyed ginger Tom, crippled in both back legs, recently castrated, answers to the name of ‘Lucky.'” Nigel Rees of The Quote Unquote Newsletter has been...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski has a limericks news quiz. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Limericks Quiz” You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Martha Barnette. And I’m Grant Barrett, and we’re...
Grant talks about the lingo of criminals from 1930s. Here are more examples from police reporter Ben Kendall’s 1931 Los Angeles Times article, “Underworld ‘Lingo’ Brought Up-to-Date.” This is part of a complete episode...
One-off means something made or done just once. John in Bremerton, Washington, first noticed it on a British-based online forum, and the term is apparently British in origin. It appears to come from manufacturing, where since about the 1930s, a...
Quiz Guys John Chaneski and Greg Pliska lead a couple of rounds of “Chain Reaction,” a word game that’s great for parties and long car rides. Two players try to make a third one guess the word that the other two are thinking of...
This week’s slang quiz challenges a Seattle video game designer to pick out the correct slang terms from a mishmash of possible answers, including hammantaschen, party party, play pattycake, and get off. This is part of a complete episode...