After noting how similar the word genre sounds to his own first name, Quiz Guy John Chaneski crafted a quiz that involves replacing the letters gen- with John- to form an entirely new word. For example, he says, from now on when you talk about a...
After she added to his unusual collection of photos of relatives riding camels, Douglas in Thomasville, Georgia, wonders whether his brother’s granddaughter is his great-niece or his grandniece. Both terms are widely acceptable for that relationship...
What’s a grass widow? In the 1500s, this term applied to a woman with loose sexual morals. Over time, it came to mean a woman who’s been separated from her husband, or a divorcée. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Grass Widow”...
Daniel, just outside Penetanguishene, Ontario, grew up in a family with Oklahoma Cherokee ties and heard his grandfather call himself Black Dutch, apparently to deny Native ancestry in a racist setting. The term is a knotty racial descriptor...
Hi, all -- In this week's episode of "A Way with Words": If you want to make a room cooler, do you "turn up" the air conditioning? Or do you "turn it down"? Also, "croaker" meaning a "hundred-dollar...
Whoever wrote “The Book of Love” neglected to include the handy emoticon