If you’re looking for a clever way to straddle the glass-half-empty line, try using litotes, or understated slights turned positive. For example, the guy you met for a blind date was really not unattractive. This is part of a complete episode...
Here’s a testy T-shirt slogan: “Polyamory is wrong! It’s either multiamory or polyphilia. But mixing Greek and Latin roots? Wrong!” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Etymological Mish-Mashery”...
Quiz Guy Greg Pliska has a word puzzle based on so-called container clues, where the answer is divided into two words, one which is found inside the other. For this game, the answers are all Greek gods. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript...
Well, look what the cat dragged in! It’s another newsletter from A Way with Words. Given how often we talk about food words, we should write a cookbook. For example, this past weekend’s show was a leftover — a rebroadcast, a rerun, a re...
Ready for some crazy crossword clues? The hosts discuss some clever ones, like “hula hoop?” (3 letters). Also, is the correct term jury-rigged or jerry-rigged? Why are Marines called gyrenes? When someone points out the obvious, do you...
Antimetabole, from Greek words meaning “turning about in the opposite direction,” is the rhetorical turn in “When the going gets tough, the tough get going,” where the same words come back in reverse order. Bascom in Redding, California, collects...