In English, to beat around the bush, means “to talk while avoiding another topic” or “to talk without ever getting to the point.” A similar German phrase translates “to go like a cat around the hot porridge.” This...
How do languages change and grow? Does every language acquire new words in the same way? Martha and Grant focus on how that process happens in English and Spanish. Plus, the stories behind the Spanish word gringo and the old instruction to...
Novelist Charles Dickens created many unforgettable characters, but he’s also responsible for coining or popularizing lots of words, like “flummox” and “butterfingers.” Also, the life’s work of slang lexicographer...
A man in Chalk Mountain, Texas, recalls a sublime evening of conversation with a new German friend. As they parted, the woman uttered a German phrase suggesting that she wanted the moment to last forever. It’s “Verweile doch! Du bist so...
An astute German phrase about procrastination translates as “In the evening, lazy people get busy.” This is part of a complete episode.
A Brazilian has been researching why actors use the unlikely expression “break a leg” to wish each other well before going on stage. He suspects it’s a borrowing of a German phrase that means, “May you break your neck and...