Mealy-mouthed is an old phrase meaning someone’s vague, equivocal or beats around the bush. Even Martin Luther used a German version of the insult, “Mehl im Maule Behalten.” Luther, in fact, was quite experienced at tossing out...
There’s a new kind of hamburger menu that involves pixels, not pickles. It’s that little stack of horizontal lines in the corner of a webpage that you click to see more options. You might use a hamburger menu while webrooming–that...
Melissa from New Orleans, Louisiana, found herself catching flak after suggesting at Thanksgiving dinner that her family say what they were grateful for. The word traces to German anti-aircraft guns, Fliegerabwehrkanone, literally “pilot-warding-off...
Sure, it’s scary to send your writing to a literary agent. But pity the poor agent who must wade through hundreds of terrible query letters a week! One of them shares excerpts from those hilariously bad query letters on a blog called SlushPile...
Contrary to what your dictionary might tell you, there’s no one right way to pronounce won. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Ways to Pronounce “Won”” Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hi, this is Jake...
Unlike smelling a rat, smelling a mouse isn’t necessarily a bad thing — you could smell a mouse, thereby sussing out that someone has good news to share, or just a fun prank to play. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of...