O heavy lightness! Serious vanity! Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms! Andrew in Dallas enjoys oxymorons, expressions that yoke contradictory ideas into a single phrase. The word oxymoron is from Greek for “pointedly foolish,” and everyday...
Grant gives Martha a little Greek test with the word leucomelanous. Leuco, meaning “white,” and melano, meaning “black,” together refer to someone with a fair complexion and dark hair, like Snow White or Veronica from the...
It’s always fun to catch moviemakers’ blunders. Say you’re watching an epic about ancient Rome and spot a toga-clad extra who forgot to remove his wristwatch. That’s an anachronism. But what do you call something that’s...
What do you call an expert speller? A “Words With Friends” enthusiast wants to know. Martha tells her that a great speller is called an orthographer or orthographist, from the Latin roots ortho- meaning “straight” or...
When it’s raining cats and dogs, the Greeks say, “It’s raining chair legs!” Omniglot has many more terms for downpours around the world. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Raining Chair Legs” So...
Great Googly-Moogly, it's another newsletter from "A Way with Words"! In our latest archive episode: If a woman keeps her own name after marriage, is she "Ms." or "Mrs."? Also,"redd up," "out like...